GIFT  or 

Sir  Henry  Heyman       I 


READIAI^A. 


Illustrateti  Caiinct  SUition 


Readiana 


By 

Charles   Re^de,  D.  C.  L. 


Boston 

Dana   Estes  &  Company 

Publishers 


Ia      \^JJiu    UtiUfn,, 


CONTENTS= 


PAGE 

The  Box  Tuxxel       .,.,.,     ,,o     o«..     .  1 

A  Brave  Woman      ....     o     ....,..,     .  11 

A  Bad  Fall 16 

Perseverance  .,..,,,., 20 

A  Hero  and  a  Martyr 29 

A  Dramatic  Musician  .............  36 

Death  of  Winwood  Reade 41 

Cremona  Fiddles      ........  44 

The  Story  of  the  Boat  Race  of  1872      ......  88 

Builders'  Blunders 95 

Who  is  He  ? 110 

The  Doctrine  of  Coincidences 112 

Our  Dark  Places 151 

The  Rights  and  the  Wrongs  of  Authors 169 

Letter  to  Mr.  J.  R.  Lowell   on   International  Copy- 
right       306 

ViCARIA 315 

Hang  in  Haste,  Repent  at  Leisure 319 

The  Legal  Vocabulary 349 

Colonel  Baker's  Sentence 356 


t^  *}  ^  -i  ^'    1 


IV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

rnoTKST  Against  the  Murder  at  Lewes  Gaol       .     .     .  302 

•Starvation  Refusing  Plenty    ....,..,,.  304 

Outrages  on  the  Jews  in  Russia 308 

Private  Bills  and  Public  Wrongs  ........  373 

"A  Terrible  Temptation" 377 

A  Suppressed  Letter , 399 

"Foul  Play" 405 

The  Sham  Sample  Swindle 408 

"It  is  Never  Too  Late  to  Mend" 422 

The    "Edinburgh    Review"    and    the    "Saturday  Re- 
view"     423 

The  Prurient  Prude 424 

Second-hand  Libel 433 

"Facts  Must  be  Faced" 436 

Dialogue  Between  a  Judge  and  a  Gaoler  .     ,     ,     ,     ,  442 

Note  to  a  Sick  Friend 445 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

He  Held  Open  the  Door  ....  Frontispiece 
He  Was  a  Tall,  Tnix  Veteran  ....  58 
Dr.  Rutledge  Felt  His  Pulse  ....  154 
A  Very  Curious  Little  Animal    ....       378 


Readiana 


READIANA. 


THE  BOX  TUNNEL. 

A  Fact. 

The  10.15  train  glided  from  Paddington,  May  7, 1847. 
In  the  left  compartment  of  a  certain  first-class  carriage 
were  four  passengers ;  of  these,  two  were  worth  descrip- 
tion. The  lady  had  a  smooth,  white,  delicate  brow, 
strongly  marked  eyebrows,  long  lashes,  eyes  that  seemed 
to  change  colour,  and  a  good-sized  delicious  mouth,  with 
teeth  as  white  as  milk.  A  man  could  not  see  her  nose 
for  her  eyes  and  mouth :  her  own  sex  could  and  would 
have  told  us  some  nonsense  about  it.  She  wore  an  un- 
pretending greyish  dress,  buttoned  to  the  throat,  with 
lozenge-shaped  buttons,  and  a  Scotch  shawl  that  agree- 
ably evaded  the  responsibility  of  colour.  She  was  like 
a  duck,  so  tight  her  plain  feathers  fitted  her ;  and  there 
she  sat,  smooth,  snug,  and  delicious,  with  a  book  in  her 
hand  and  a  soupqon  of  her  snowy  wrist  just  visible  as 
she  held  it.  Her  opposite  neighbor  was  what  I  call  a 
good  style  of  man, —  the  more  to  his  credit,  since  he  be- 
longed to  a  corporation,  that  frequently  turns  out  the 
worst  imaginable  style  of  young  man.  He  was  a  cav- 
ahy  officer,  aged  twenty-five.  He  had  a  moustache,  but 
not  a  repulsive  one ;  not  one  of  those  sub-nasal  pig-tails, 

1 


2  KEADIANA. 

on  which  soup  is  suspended  like  dew  on  a  shrub ;  it  was 
short,  thick,  and  black  as  a  coal.  His  teeth  had  not  yet 
been  turned  by  tobacco  smoke  to  the  colour  of  tobacco 
juice,  his  clothes  did  not  stick  to  nor  hang  on  him,  they 
sat  on  him  ;  he  had  an  engaging  smile,  and,  what  I  liked 
the  dog  for,  his  vanity,  which  was  inordinate,  was  in  its 
proper  place,  his  heart,  not  in  hjs  face,  jostling  mine  and 
other  people's,  who  have  none  : —  in  a  word,  he  was  what 
one  oftener  hears  of  than  meets,  a  young  gentleman.  He 
was  conversing,  in  an  animated  whisper,  with  a  compan- 
ion, a  fellow-officer, —  they  were  talking  about,  what  it 
is  far  better  not  to  do,  women.  Our  friend  clearly  did  not 
wish  to  be  overheard,  for  he.  cast,  ever  and  anon,  a  fur- 
tive glance  at  his  fair  vis-a-vis  and  lowered  his  voice. 
She  seemed  completely  absorbed  in  her  book,  and  that 
reassured  him.  At  last  the  two  soldiers  came  down  to 
a  whisper,  and  in  that  whisper  (the  truth  must  be  told) 
the  one  who  got  down  at  Slough,  and  was  lost  to  posterity, 
bet  ten  pounds  to  three,  that  he,  who  was  going  down 
with  us  to  Bath  and  immortality,  would  not  kiss  either 
of  the  ladies  opposite  upon  the  road.  "  Done !  Done  ! " 
Now  I  am  sorry  a  man  I  have  hitherto  praised  should 
have  lent  himself,  even  in  a  whisper,  to  such  a  specula- 
tion :  but  "  nobody  is  wise  at  all  hours,"  not  even  when 
the  clock  is  striking  five-and-twenty ;  and  you  are  to 
consider  his  profession,  his  good  looks,  and  the  tempta- 
tion,—  ten  to  three. 

After  Slough  the  party  was  reduced  to  three;  at 
Twyford  one  lady  dropped  her  handkerchief;  Captain 
Dolignan  fell  on  it  like  a  tiger  and  returned  it  like  a 
lamb ;  two  or  three  words  were  interchanged  on  that  oc- 
casion. At  Reading  the  Marlborough  of  our  tale  made 
one  of  the  safe  investments  of  that  day;  he  bought  a 


THE    BOX    TUNNEL.  6 

"  Times  "  and  a  "  Punch  "  ;  the  latter  was  full  of  steel- 
pen  thrusts  and  viood-cuts.  Valour  and  beauty  deigned 
to  laugh  at  some  inflated  humbug  or  other  punctured  by 
"Punch."  Now  laughing  together  thaws  our  human 
ice  ;  long  before  Swindon  it  was  a  talking  match,  —  at 
Swindon  who  so  devoted  as  Captain  Dolignan,  —  he 
handed  them  out, — he  souped  them, — he  tough-chickened 
them,  —  he  brandied  and  cochinealed*  one,  and  he  bran- 
died  and  burnt-sugared  the  other ;  on  their  return  to  the 
carriage  one  lady  passed  into  the  inner  compartment  to 
inspect  a  certain  gentleman's  seat  on  that  side  the  line. 

Reader,  had  it  been  you  or  I,  the  beauty  would  have 
been  the  deserter,  the  average  one  would  have  stayed 
with  us  till  all  was  blue,  ourselves  included ;  not  more 
surely  does  our  slice  of  bread  and  butter,  when  it  es- 
capes from  our  hand,  revolve  it  ever  so  often,  alight  face 
downwards  on  the  carpet.  But  this  was  a  bit  of  a  fop, 
Adonis,  dragoon, —  so  Venus  remained  in  fete-d-tete  with 
him.  You  have  seen  a  dog  meet  an  unknown  female 
of  his  species ;  how  handsome,  how  emjyresse,  how  ex- 
pressive he  becomes  ;  such  was  Dolignan  after  Swindon, 
and,  to  do  the  dog  justice,  he  got  handsomer  and  hand- 
somer ;  and  you  have  seen  a  cat  conscious  of  approaching 
cream,  —  such  was  Miss  Haythorn  ;  she  became  demurer 
and  demurer :  presently  our  Captain  looked  out  of  win- 
dow and  laughed  ;  this  elicited  an  inquiring  look  from 
Miss  Haythorn. 

"  We  are  only  a  mile  from  the  Box  Tunnel." 

"  Do  you  always  laugh  a  mile  from  the  Box  Tunnel  ?  " 
said  the  lady. 

"  Invariably." 

*  This  is  supposed  to  allude  to  two  decoctions  called  port  and  sherry, 
and  imagined  by  one  earthly  nation  to  partake  of  a  vinous  nature. 


4  READIANA. 

"  Wheat  for  ?  " 

"  Why  !  —  hem  !  —  it  is  a  gentleman's  joke." 

^'  0, 1  don't  mind  its  being  silly,  if  it  makes  me  laugh." 

Captain  Dolignan,  thus  encouraged,  recounted  to  Miss 
Haythorn  the  following :  "  A  lady  and  her  husband  sat 
together  going  through  the  Box  Tunnel,  —  there  was  one 
gentleman  opposite  ;  it  was  pitch-dark  ;  after  the  tunnel 
the  lady  said,  '  George,  how  absurd  of  you  to  salute  me 
going  through  the  tunnel ! '  —  <  I  did  no  such  thing.' — 
^  You  didn't  ?  '  — '  No  !  why  ?  '  — '  Why,  because  some- 
how I  thought  you  did.' "  Here  Captain  Dolignan 
laughed,  and  endeavoured  to  lead  his  companion  to  laugh, 
but  it  was  not  to  be  done.    The  train  entered  the  tunnel. 

Miss  Haythorn.     "  Ah  !  " 

Dolignan.     "  What  is  the  matter  ?  " 

Miss  Haythorn.     "  I  am  frightened.'^ 

Dolignan  (moving  to  her  side).  "Pray  do  not  be 
alarmed,  I  am  near  you." 

Miss  Haythorn.  "  You  are  near  me,  very  near  me  in- 
deed. Captain  Dolignan." 

Dolignan.     "  You  know  my  name  !  " 

Miss  Haythorn.  "  I  heard  your  friend  mention  it.  I 
wish  we  were  out  of  this  dark  place." 

Dolignan.  "I  could  be  content  to  spend  hours  here, 
reassuring  you,  sweet  lady." 

Miss  Haythorn.      "  Nonsense  !  " 

Dolignan.  "  Pweep  !  "  (Grave  reader,  do  not  put  your 
lips  to  the  cheek  of  the  next  pretty  creature  you  meet, 
or  you  will  understand  what  this  means. ) 

Miss  Haythorn.     "  Ee  !  Ee  !  Ee  !  " 

Friend.     "  What  is  the  matter  ?  " 

Miss  Haythorn.     "  Open  the  door  !  —  open  the  door ! " 

The  door  was  opened.     There  was  a  sound  of  hurried 


THE   BOX  TUNNEL.  O 

whispers,  the  door  was  shut  and  the  blind  pulled  down 
with  hostile  sharpness. 

Miss  Haythorn's  scream  lost  a  part  of  its  effect  be- 
cause the  engine  whistled  forty  thousand  murders  at  the 
same  moment;  and  fictitious  grief  makes  itself  heard 
•when  real  cannot. 

Between  the  tunnel  and  Bath  our  young  friend  had 
time  to  ask  himself  whether  his  conduct  had  been 
marked  by  that  delicate  reserve,  which  is  supposed  to 
distinguish  the  perfect  gentleman. 

With  a  long  face,  real  or  feigned,  he  held  open  the 
door,  —  his  late  friends  attempted  to  escape  on  the  other 
side,  —  impossible  !  they  must  pass  him.  She  whom  he 
had  insulted  (Latin  for  kissed),  deposited  somewhere  at 
his  foot  a  look  of  gentle  blushing  reproach ;  the  other, 
whom  he  had  not  insulted,  darted  red-hot  daggers  at 
him  from  her  eyes,  and  so  they  parted. 

It  was  perhaps  fortunate  for  Dolignan  that  he  had  the 
grace  to  be  friends  with  Major  Hoskyns  of  his  regiment, 
a  veteran  laughed  at  by  the  youngsters,  for  the  Major 
was  too  apt  to  look  coldly  upon  billiard  balls  and  cigars ; 
he  had  seen  cannon  balls  and  linstocks.  He  had  also, 
to  tell  the  truth,  swallowed  a  good  bit  of  the  mess-room 
poker,  but  with  it  some  sort  of  moral  poker,  which  made 
it  as  impossible  for  Major  Hoskyns  to  descend  to  an 
ungentlemanlike  word  or  action  as  to  brush  his  own 
trousers  below  the  knee. 

Captain  Dolignan  told  this  gentleman  his  story  in 
gleeful  accents ;  but  Major  Hoskyns  heard  him  coldly, 
and  as  coldly  answered  that  he  had  known  a  man 
lose  his  life  for  the  same  thing.  "  That  is  nothing," 
continued  the  Major,  "  but  imfortunately  he  deserved  to 
lose  it." 


6  READIANA. 

At  this  the  blood  mounted  to  the  younger  man's  tem- 
ples, and  his  senior  added :  "  I  mean  to  say  he  was 
thirty-five  ;  you,  I  presume,  are  twenty-one  !  " 

"  Twenty-five.-' 

"  That  is  much  the  same  thing.  Will  you  be  advised 
by  me  ?  " 

"  If  you  will  advise  me." 

^'  Speak  to  no  one  of  this,  and  send  White  the  £3  that 
he  may  think  you  have  lost  the  bet." 

"  That  is  hard  when  I  won  it." 

"  Do  it  for  all  that,  sir." 

Let  the  disbelievers  in  human  perfectibility  know  that 
this  dragoon  capable  of  a  blush  did  this  virtuous  action, 
albeit  with  violent  reluctance ;  and  it  was  his  first 
damper.  A  week  after  these  events,  he  was  at  a  ball. 
He  was  in  that  state  of  factitious  discontent  which  be- 
longs to  us  amiable  English.  He  was  looking,  in  vain, 
for  a  lady,  equal  in  personal  attraction  to  the  idea  he 
had  formed  of  George  Dolignan  as  a  man,  when  suddenly 
there  glided  past  him  a  most  delightful  vision,  a  lady 
whose  beauty  and  symmetry  took  him  by  the  eyes. 
Another  look :  "  It  can't  be  !  —  Yes,  it  is  !  "  Miss  Hay- 
thorn  —  (not  that  he  knew  her  name)  —  but  what  an 
apotheosis ! 

The  duck  had  become  a  pea-hen,  —  radiant,  dazzling ; 
she  looked  twice  as  beautiful  and  almost  twice  as  large 
as  before.  He  lost  sight  of  her.  He  found  her  again. 
She  was  so  lovely  she  made  him  ill,  —  and  he,  alone, 
must  not  dance  with  her,  nor  speak  to  her.  If  he  had 
been  content  to  begin  her  acquaintance  in  the  usual  way, 
it  might  have  ended  in  kissing,  but  having  begun  with 
kissing  it  must  end  in  nothing.  As  she  danced,  sparks 
of  beauty  fell  from  her  on  all  around,  but  him,  —  she 


THE    BOX   TUNNEL.  i 

did  not  see  him ;  it  was  clear  she  never  would  see  him. 
One  gentleman  was  particularly  assiduous ;  she  smiled 
on  his  assiduity ;  he  was  ugly,  but  she  smiled  on  him. 
Dolignan  was  surprised  at  his  success,  his  ill  taste,  his 
ugliness,  his  impertinence.  Dolignan  at  last  found  him- 
self injured.  "  Who  was  this  man  ?  and  what  right  had 
he  to  go  on  so  ?  He  had  never  kissed  her,  I  suppose," 
said  Dolly.  Dolignan  could  not  prove  it,  but  he  felt 
that,  somehow,  the  rights  of  property  were  invaded. 
He  went  home  and  dreamed  of  Miss  Haythorn,  and 
hated  all  the  ugly  successful.*  He  spent  a  fortnight 
trying  to  find  out  who  this  beauty  was,  —  he  never  could 
encounter  her  again.  At  last  he  heard  of  her  in  this 
way ;  a  lawyer's  clerk  paid  him  a  little  visit  and  com- 
menced a  little  action  against  him,  in  the  name  of  Miss 
Haythorn,  for  insulting  her  in  a  railway  train. 

The  young  gentleman  was  shocked  ;  endeavoured  to 
soften  the  lawyer's  clerk;  that  machine  did  not  thor- 
oughly comprehend  the  meaning  of  the  term.  The 
lady's  name,  however,  was  at  last  revealed  by  this  un- 
toward incident ;  from  her  name  to  her  address  was 
but  a  short  step ;  and  the  same  day  our  crestfallen  hero 
lay  in  wait  at  her  door,  and  many  a  succeeding  day, 
without  effect.  But  one  fine  afternoon  she  issued  forth 
quite  naturally,  as  if  she  did  it  every  day,  and  walked 
iiriskly  on  the  nearest  Parade.  Dolignan  did  the  same, 
he  met  and  passed  her  many  times  on  the  Parade,  and 
searched  for  pity  in  her  eyes,  but  found  neither  look, 
nor  recognition,  nor  any  other  sentiment;  for  all  this 
she  walked  and  walked,  till  all  the  other  promenaders 


*  When  our  siiecessful  rival  is  ugly  the  hlow  is  doubly  severe,  crushing, 
—we  fall  hy  bhidgeon  :  we  who  thought  the  keenest  rapier  might  perchance 
thrust  at  us  in  vain. 


8  REABIANA. 

were  tired  and  gone,  —  then  her  culprit  summoned  reso- 
lution, and  taking  off  his  hat,  with  a  voice  tremulous  for 
the  first  time,  besought  permission  to  address  her.  She 
stopped,  blushed,  and  neither  acknowledged  nor  dis- 
owned his  acquaintance.  He  blushed,  stammered  out 
how  ashamed  he  was,  how  he  deserved  to  be  punished, 
how  he  teas  punished,  how  little  she  knew  how  unhappy 
he  was ;  and  concluded  by  begging  her  not  to  let  all  the 
world  know  the  disgrace  of  a  man  who  was  already 
mortified  enough  by  the  loss  of  her  acquaintance.  She 
asked  an  explanation ;  he  told  her  of  the  action  that  had 
been  commenced  in  her  name  ;  she  gently  shrugged  her 
shoulders,  and  said,  "  How  stupid  they  are."  Embold- 
ened by  this,  he  begged  to  know  v/hether  or  not  a  life  of 
distant  unpretending  devotion  would,  after  a  lapse  of 
years,  erase  the  memory  of  his  madness,  —  his  crime  ? 

She  did  not  know. 

She  must  now  bid  him  adieu,  as  she  had  some  prep- 
arations to  make  for  a  ball  in  the  Crescent,  where  every- 
bodij  was  to  be.  They  parted,  and  Dolignan  determined 
to  be  at  the  ball  where  everybody  was  to  be.  He  was 
there,  and  after  some  time  he  obtained  an  introduction 
to  Miss  Haythorn,  and  he  danced  with  her.  Her  manner 
was  gracious.  With  the  wonderful  tact  of  her  sex,  she 
seemed  to  have  commenced  the  acquaintance  that  even- 
ing. That  night,  for  the  first  time,  Dolignan  was  in 
love.  I  will  spare  the  reader  all  a  lover's  arts,  by  which 
he  succeeded  in  dining  where  she  dined,  in  dancing 
where  she  danced,  in  overtaking  her  by  accident  when 
she  rode.  His  devotion  followed  her  even  to  church, 
where  our  dragoon  was  rewarded  by  learning  there  is  a 
world  where  they  neither  polk  nor  smdke,  —  the  two 
capital  abominations  of  this  one. 


THE    BOX    TUNXEL.  9 

He  made  acquaintance  with  her  uncle,  who  liked  him, 
and  he  saw  at  last,  with  jo\^,  that  her  eye  loved  to  dwell 
upon  him,  when  she  thought  he  did  not  observe  her. 

It  was  three  months  after  the  Box  Tunnel  that  Captain 
Dolignan  called  one  day  upon  Captain  Haythorn,  R.N., 
whom  he  had  met  twice  in  his  life,  and  slightly  propi- 
tiated by  resolutely  listening  to  a  cutting-out  expedition ; 
he  called,  and  in  the  usual  way  asked  permission  to  pay 
his  addresses  to  his  daughter.  The  worthy  Captain 
straightway  began  doing  Quarter-Deck,  when  suddenly 
he  was  summoned  from  the  apartment  by  a  mysterious 
message.  On  his  return  he  announced,  with  a  total 
change  of  voice,  that,  "  It  was  all  right,"  and  his  visitor 
"  might  run  alongside  as  soon  as  he  chose."  My  reader 
has  divined  the  truth ;  this  nautical  commander,  terrible 
to  the  foe,  was  in  complete  and  happy  subjugation  to 
his  daughter,  our  heroine. 

As  he  was  taking  leave,  Dolignan  saw  his  divinity 
glide  into  the  drawing-room.  He  followed  her,  observed 
a  sweet  consciousness  which  encouraged  him ;  that  con- 
sciousness deepened  into  confusion,  —  she  tried  to  laugh, 
she  cried  instead,  and  then  she  smiled  again ;  and  when 
he  kissed  her  hand  at  the  door,  it  was,  "  George,"  and 
"  Marian,"  instead  of  Captain  this,  and  Miss  the  other. 
A  reasonable  time  after  this  (for  my  tale  is  merciful  and 
skips  formalities  and  torturing  delays)  these  two  were 
very  happy,  —  they  were  once  more  upon  the  railroad, 
going  to  enjoy  the  honeymoon  all  by  themselves. 
Marian  Dolignan  was  dressed  just  as  before,  —  duck- 
like, and  delicious ;  all  bright  except  her  clothes :  but 
George  sat  beside  her  this  time  instead  of  opposite ;  and 
she  drank  him  in  gently  from  under  her  long  eyelashes. 
"  Marian,"  said  George,  "  married  people  should  tell  each 


10  READIANA. 

other  all.  Will  you  ever  forgive  me  if  I  own  to  you  — 
no  — '^ 

"Yes!   yes!" 

"  AVell,  then !  you  remember  the  Box  Tunnel "  (this 
was  the  first  allusion  he  had  ventured  to  it)  ;  "  I  am 
ashamed  to  say  I  had  bet  £3  to  £10  with  White,  I 
would  kiss  one  of  you  two  ladies  " ;  and  George,  pathetic 
externally,  chuckled  within. 

"  1  know  that,  George ;  I  overheard  you,"  was  the 
demure  reply. 

"  0,  you  overheard  me  ?  —  impossible." 

"  And  did  you  not  hear  me  whisper  to  my  companion  ? 
I  made  a  bet  with  her." 

"  You  made  a  bet  ?  —  how  singular  !     W^hat  was  it  ?  " 

"  Only  a  pair  of  gloves,  George." 

"  Yes,  -I  know,  but  what  about  ?  " 

"That,  if  you  did,  you  should  be  my  husband,  dearest." 

"  Oh  !  —  but  stay  :  then  you  could  not  have  been  so 
very  angry  with  me,  love ;  why,  dearest,  then  who 
brought  that  action  against  me  ?  " 

Mrs.  Dolignan  looked  down. 

"  I  was  afraid  you  were  forgetting  me.  George,  you 
will  never  forgive  me  ?  " 

"  Sweet  angel !  —  why,  here  is  the  Box  Tunnel." 

Now  reader,  —  fie  !  —  luo  !  no  such  thing  !  You  can't 
expect  to  be  indulged  in  this  way  every  time  we  come 
to  a  dark  place.  Besides,  it  is  not  the  thing.  Consider  ; 
two  sensible  married  people,  —  no  such  phenomenon,  I 
assure  you,  took  place  ;  no  scream  issued  in  hopeless 
rivalry  of  the  engine  —  this  time. 


A  BEAVE   WOMAN.  11 


A   BRAVE   WOMAN. 

The  public  itches  to  hear  what  people  of  rank  and 
reputation  do  and  say,  however  trivial.  We  defer  to 
this  taste  :  and  that  gives  us  a  right  to  gratify  our  own 
now  and  then,  by  presenting  what  may  be  called  the 
reverse  picture,  the  remarkable  acts,  or  sufferings,  or 
qualities,  of  persons  unknown  to  society,  because  society 
is  a  clique ;  and  to  fame,  because  fame  is  partial. 

In  this  spirit  we  shall  tell  our  readers  a  few  facts 
about  a  person  we  are  not  likely  to  misjudge,  for  we  do 
not  know  her  even  by  sight. 

31st  of  August,  1878,  a  train  left  Margate  for  London 
by  the  Chatham  and  Dover  line.  At  Sittingbourne  the 
pointsman  turned  the  points  the  wrong  way,  and  the 
train  dashed  into  a  shunted  train  at  full  speed.  The 
engine,  tender,  and  leading  carriages  were  crushed  to- 
gether and  piled  over  one  another.  The  nearest  passen- 
gers were  chatting  merrily  one  moment,  and  dead,  dying, 
or  mutilated,  the  next. 

Nearest  the  engine  was  a  third-class  carriage,  and  in 
its  farthest  compartment  sat  a  Mrs.  Freeland,  who  in 
her  youth  had  led  an  adventurous  life  in  the  colonies, 
but  now  in  middle  age  had  returned  to  mother  England 
for  peace  and  quiet.  She  felt  a  crash  and  heard  a  hiss- 
ing, and  for  one  moment  saw  the  tender  bursting  through 
the  compartments  towards  her ;  then  she  was  hurled 
down  upon  her  face,  with  some  awful  weight  upon  her, 


1 2  READIANA. 

and  wedged  immovable  in  a  debria  of  fractured  iron, 
splintered  wood,  shattered  glass,  and  mutilated  bodies. 

In  a  few  minutes  people  ran  to  help,  but  in  that  ex- 
cited state  which  sometimes  aggravates  these  dire  calami- 
ties. First  they  were  for  dragging  her  out  by  force  ; 
but  she  was  self-possessed,  and  said  :  "  Pray,  be  calm  and 
don't  attempt  it;  I  am  fast  by  the  legs,  and  a  great 
weight  on  my  back." 

Then  they  were  for  breaking  into  the  carriage  from 
above  ;  but  she  called  to  them,  "  Please  don't  do  that  — 
the  roof  is  broken,  and  you  don't  know  what  you  may 
bring  down  upon  us." 

Thus  advised  •  by  the  person  most  likely  to  lose  her 
head  one  would  think,  they  effected  an  entrance  at  the 
sides.  They  removed  from  her  back  an  iron  wheel  and 
a  dead  body,  and  they  sawed  round  her  jammed  and 
lacerated  limbs,  and  at  last  with  difficulty  carried  out  a 
lady,  with  her  boots  torn  and  filled  with  blood,  her 
clothes  in  ribbons,  her  face  pouring  blood,  her  back 
apparently  broken,  and  her  right  leg  furrowed  all  down 
to  the  very  foot  with  a  gaping  wound,  that  laid  bare  the 
sinews ;  besides  numberless  contusions  and  smaller  in- 
juries. They  laid  her  on  a  mat  upon  the  platform,  and 
there  she  remained,  refusing  many  offers  of  brandy,  and 
waiting  for  a  surgeon. 

None  came  for  a  long  time ;  and  benevolent  Nature, 
so-called,  sent  a  heavy  rain.  At  last,  in  three  quarters 
of  an  hour,  surgeons  arrived,  and  one  of  them  removed 
her  on  her  mat  into  a  shed,  that  let  in  only  part  of  the 
rain.  He  found  her  spine  injured,  took  a  double  hand- 
ful of  splinters,  wood,  and  glass,  out  of  her  head  and 
face,  and  then  examined  her  leg.  He  looked  aghast  at 
the  awful  furrow.     The  sufferer  said,  quietly,  "  I  should 


A  BRAVE   WOMAN.  ^^ 

like  a  stitch  or  two  put  into  that."     The  surgeon  looked 
at  her  in  amazement,  "Can  you  bear  it?"     She  said: 

"I  think  so." 

He  said  she  had  better  fortify  herself  with  a  little 
brandy.  She  objected  to  that  as  useless.  But  he  in- 
sisted, and  the  awful  furrow  was  stitched  up  with  silk. 
This  done  he  told  her  she  had  better  be  moved  to  the 
Infirmary  at  Chatham. 

"Army  surgeons?"    said  she.     "No,  thank  you.     1 
shall  go  to  a  London  hospital." 

Being  immovable  in  this  resolution,  she  had  to  wait 
three  hours  for  a  train. 

At  last  she  was  sent  up  to  London,  lying  upon  a  mat 
on  the  floor  of  a  carriage,  hashed,  as  we  have  described, 
and  soaked  with  rain.  From  the  London  station  she 
was  conveyed  on  a  stretcher  to  St.  George's  Hospital. 
There  they  discovered  many  grave  injuries,  admired  her 
for  her  courage  and  wisdom  in  having  had  her  wounded 
leg  sewn  up  at  once,  but  told  her  with  regret  that  to  be 
effectual  it  must  be  secured  with  silver  points,  and  that 

without  delay. 

"Very  well,"  said  she,  patiently;  "but  give  me  chlo- 
roform, for  I  am  worn  out." 

The  surgeon  said:  "If  you  could  endure  it  without 
chloroform  it  'would  be  better."  He  saw  she  had  the 
courage  of  ten  men. 

"  Well,"  said  she,  "  let  me  have  somebody's  hand  to 
hold,  and  I  will  try  to  bear  it." 

A  sympathizing  young  surgeon  gave  this  brave  woman 
his  hand  :  and  she  bore  to  have  the  silk  threads  removed, 
and  thirty  little  silver  skewers  passed  and  repassed 
through  her  quivering  flesh,  sixty  wounds  to  patch  up 
one      It  afterwards  transpired  that  the  good  surgeon  was 


14  READIANA. 

only  reserving  chloroform  for  the  amputation  he  thought 
must  follow,  having  little  hope  of  saving  such  a  leg. 

Whatever  charity  and  science  —  united  in  our  hospi- 
tals, though  disunited  in  those  dark  hells  where  God's 
innocent  creatures  are  cut  up  alive  out  of  curiosity  — 
could  do,  was  done  for  her  at  St.  George's  Hospital ;  the 
wounded  leg  was  saved,  and  in  three  weeks  the  patient 
was  carried  home.  But  the  deeper  injuries  seemed  to 
get  worse.  She  lay  six  months  on  her  back,  and  after 
that  was  lame  and  broken  and  aching  from  head  to  foot 
for  nearly  a  year.  As  soon  as  she  could  crawl  about 
she  busied  herself  in  relieving  the  sick  and  the  poor, 
according  to  her  means. 

Fifteen  months  after  the  railway  accident,  a  new  and 
mysterious  injury  began  to  show  itself ;  severe  internal 
pains,  accompanied  with  wasting,  which  was  quite  a  new 
feature  in  the  case.  This  brought  her  to  death's  door 
after  all. 

But,  when  faint  hopes  were  entertained  of  her  recovery, 
the  malady  declared  itself,  an  abscess  in  the  intestines. 
It  broke,  and  left  the  sufferer  prostrate,  but  out  of 
danger. 

Unfortunately,  in  about  a  month  another  formed,  and 
laid  her  low  again,  until  it  gave  way  like  its  predecessor. 
And  that  has  now  been  her  life  for  months ;  constantly 
growing  these  agonising  things,  of  which  a  single  one  is 
generally  fatal. 

In  one  of  her  short  intervals  of  peace  a  friend  of  hers, 
Major  Mercier,  represented  to  her  the  merits  and  the  dif- 
ficulties of  a  certain  hospital  for  diseases  of  the  skin. 
Instantly  this  brave  woman  sets  to  work  and  lives  for 
other  afflicted  persons.  She  fights  the  good  fight,  talks, 
writes,  persuades,  insists,  obtains  the  public  support  of 


A    BRAVE    WO]VIAN.  15 

five  duchesses,  five  marcliionesses,  thirty -two  countesses, 
and  a  hundred  ladies  of  rank,  and  also  of  many  celebrated 
characters ;  obtains  subscriptions,  organises  a  grand  ba- 
zaar, etc.,  for  this  worthy  object. 

Now,  as  a  general  rule,  permanent  invalids  fall  into 
egotism ;  but  here  is  a  lady,  not  only  an  invalid,  but  a 
sufferer,  and  indeed  knocked  down  by  suffering  half  her 
time ;  yet  with  undaunted  heart,  and  charitable,  unselfish 
soul,  she  struggles  and  works  for  others,  whose  maladies 
are  after  all  much  lighter  than  her  own. 

Ought  so  much  misfortune  and  merit  to  receive  no  pub- 
lic notice  ?  Ought  so  rare  an  union  of  male  fortitude 
and  womanly  pity  to  suffer  and  relieve  without  a  word 
of  praise  ?  Why  to  us,  who  judge  by  things,  not  names, 
this  seems  some  heroic  figure  strayed  out  of  Antiquity 
into  an  age  of  little  men  and  vvomen,  who  howl  at  the 
scratch  of  a  pen. 

Such  a  character  deserves  to  be  sung  by  some  Christian 
poet ;  but  as  poetasters  are  many  and  poets  are  few,  Mrs. 
Rosa  Freeland,  brave,  suffering  and  charitable,  is  chron- 
icled in  the  prose  of  "  Fact." 


10  READIANA. 


A    BAD    FALL. 

To  THE  Editor  op  "Fact." 

Sir,  —  I  sometimes  get  provoked  with  the  British 
workman  —  and  say  so.  He  comes  into  my  house  to  do 
a  day's  work,  and  goes  out  again  to  fetch  the  tool  he 
knew  he  should  want,  and  does  not  come  back  till  after 
breakfast.  Then  I  think  I  have  got  him.  But  no ;  he 
sharpens  his  tools  and  goes  out  for  a  whet.  Even  when 
he  is  at  work  he  is  always  going  into  the  kitchen  for  hot 
water,  or  a  hot  coal,  or  the  loan  of  a  pair  of  tongs,  or 
some  other  blind.  My  maids,  who,  before  he  came,  were 
all  industry  and  mock  modesty,  throw  both  these  virtues 
out  of  window,  and  are  after  him  on  the  roof,  when  he  is 
not  after  them  in  the  kitchen.  They  lose  their  heads 
entirel}^,  and  are  not  worth  their  salt,  far  less  their  wages, 
till  he  is  gone,  and  that  is  always  a  terribly  long  time, 
considering  how  little  he  has  to  do.  For  these  reasons, 
and  because  whenever  he  has  been  out  on  my  roof,  the 
rain  comes  in  next  heavy  shower,  I  have  permitted  my- 
self to  call  him  in  print  "  the  curse  of  families." 

Then  he  strikes,  and  combines,  and  speechifies,  and 
calls  the  capital,  that  feeds  him,  his  enemy ;  and  some- 
times fights  with  the  capital  of  a  thousand  against  the 
capital  of  a  single  master,  and  overpowers  it,  yet  calls 
that  a  fight  of  labour  against  capital.  Then  he  demands 
short  time,  which  generally  means  more  time  to  drink  in, 
and  higher  wages,  which   often  means  more   money  to 


A   BAD   FALL.  17 

drink  with.  Thereupon  I  lose  my  temper,  rush  into 
print,  and  call  the  British  workman  the  British  talk- 
man  and  the  British  drink-man. 

But  it  must  be  owned  all  this  is  rather  narrow  and 
shallow.  "  Where  there's  a  multitude  there's  a  mixture," 
and  a  private  gentleman  in  my  position  does  not  really 
know  the  mass  of  the  workmen,  and  their  invaluable 
qualities. 

One  thing  is  notorious  —  that  in  their  bargains  with 
capital  they  are  very  lenient  in  one  respect,  they  charge 
very  little  for  their  lives  ;  yet  they  shorten  them  in  many 
trades,  and  lose  them  right  away  in  some. 

Even  I,  who  have  been  hard  on  them  in  some  things, 
have  already  pointed  out  that  instead  of  labour  and  capi- 
tal the  trades  ought  to  speechify  on  life,  labour,  and 
capital ;  and  dwell  more  upon  their  risks,  as  a  fit  subj.ect 
of  remuneration,  than  their  professed  advocates  have 
done. 

Is  it  not  a  sad  thing  to  reflect,  when  you  see  the  scaf- 
folding prepared  for  some  great  building  to  be  erected 
either  for  pious  or  mundane  purposes,  that  out  of  those 
employed  in  erecting  it  some  are  sure  to  be  killed ! 

All  this  prolixity  is  to  usher  in  a  simple  fact,  which 
interests  me  more  than  the  petty  proceedings  of  exalted 
personages,  and  their  "  migrations  from  the  blue  bed  to 
the  brown ; "  and  some  of  your  readers  are  sure  to  be  of 
my  mind. 

The  Princess's  Theatre,  Oxford  Street,  is  being  recon- 
structed. The  walls,  far  more  substantial  than  they 
build  now-a-days,  are  to  stand,  but  the  old  interior  is  de- 
molished, and  the  roof  heightened. 

Sullivan,  a  young  carpenter,  was  at  work  with  his 
fellows  on  a  stage  properly  secured.     They  wanted  some 


1 8  READIANA. 

ropes  that  lay  on  another  stage,  and  sent  him  for  them. 
Between  the  stages  was  a  plank,  which  he  naturally 
thought  had  been  laid  to  walk  on.  He  stepped  on  it  — 
it  was  only  a  half-inch  board.  It  snapped  under  his 
weight  like  a  carrot,  and  he  fell  through  in  a  moment. 

He  caught  at  a  projection,  but  merely  tore  his  lingers, 
and  descended  into  space  with  fearful  velocity. 

The  height  was  fifty  feet  —  measured. 

The  thing  he  fell  on  was  a  hard  board,  lying  on  hard 
ground.  Those  who  saw  him  fall,  and  heard  his  one  cry 
of  horror,  had  no  hope  of  taking  up  anything  from  the 
ground  below  but  a  battered  corpse  with  broken  back, 
fractured  skull,  and  shattered  ribs. 

Thirty -five  feet  below  the  place  he  fell  from,  a  strong 
bolt,  about  an  inch  in  diameter  and  four  feet  long,  pro- 
truded from  the  wall  almost  at  right  angles,  but  with  a 
slight  declension  downwards. 

The  outer  end  of  this  protruding  iron  just  caught  Sul- 
livan by  the  seat,  ripped  up  his  clothes,  and  tore  his  back, 
and  partly  broke  his  fall.  Nevertheless,  such  was  its 
violence  that  he  bounded  up  from  the  board  he  eventu- 
ally fell  upon,  and  was  found  all  of  a  heap  in  a  hollow 
place  close  by,  senseless,  and  almost  pulseless. 

He  was  taken  to  the  Middlesex  Hospital.  There  he 
came  to  his  senses  and  his  trouble.  His  pulse  was  soon 
over  100.  His  temperature  108  —  a  very  alarming  fea- 
ture. This,  however,  has  subsided,  and  they  have  got 
his  pulse  to  98,  but  he  cannot  eat ;  his  eyes  cannot  bear 
the  light.  There  are  one  or  more  severe  wounds  upon 
his  back  parts,  and  much  reason  to  fear  injury  to  the 
spinal  column.  He  is  in  danger;  and,  if  he  survives, 
which  I  think  very  possible,  it  is  to  be  feared  he  will 
never  be  able  to  walk  and  work  again.     These,  sir,  are 


A   BAD   FALL.  19 

the  dire  realities  of  life ;  and  very  fit  to  be  admitted  into 
your  graver  columns.  Here  is  a  sad  fact  and  a  curious 
fact. 

Sullivan  was  a  handsome  young  fellow,  just  beginning 
the  world.  In  a  moment  there  he  lies  a  cripple  and  a 
wreck,  and  that  is  a  sad  thing  for  any  feeling  heart  to 
think  of.  The  bolt  which  saved  him  from  immediate 
death  is  a  curious  fact.  It  is  still  to  be  seen  dangling 
from  the  wall  as  it  did,  when  it  ripped  up  the  workman's 
clothes,  furrowed  his  back,  and  broke  his  fall. 

Will  it  prove  his  friend  or  his  enemy,  that  piece  of 
iron  ?  The  enemy  of  his  body  if  it  makes  him  a  cripple 
instead  of  a  corpse ;  but  the  friend  of  his  soul  if  he  reads 
his  own  story  right :  wherefore  I  hope  some  servant  of 
God  will  go  to  his  bedside  with  the  true  balm  of  Gilead. 

I  am  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES   READE. 

July,  1880. 


20  KEADIANA. 


PERSEVERANCE. 

On  a  certain  day  in  the  year  1819,  Mr.  Chitty,  an 
attorney  in  Shaftsbury,  was  leaving  his  office  for  the 
day,  when  he  was  met  at  the  door  by  a  respectable 
woman  and  a  chubby-faced  boy  with  a  bright  eye.  He 
knew  the  woman  slightly  —  a  widow  that  kept  a  small 
stationer's  shop  in  the  town. 

She  opened  her  business  at  once. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Chitty,  I  have  brought  you  my  Robert ;  he 
gives  me  no  peace ;  his  heart  is  so  set  on  being  in  a  law- 
yer's office.  But  there,  I  have  not  got  the  money  to 
apprentice  him.  Only  we  thought  perhaps  you  could 
find  some  place  or  other  for  him,  if  it  was  ever  so  small." 
Then  she  broke  off  and  looked  appealingly,  and  the  boy's 
cheeks  and  eyes  were  fired  with  expectation. 

Most  country  towns  at  that  time  possessed  two  solici- 
tors, who  might  be  called  t3q3es  ;  the  old-established  man, 
whose  firm  for  generations  had  done  the  pacific  and  lu- 
crative business  —  wills,  settlements,  partnerships,  mort- 
gages, etc.,  —  and  the  sharp  practitioner,  who  was  the 
abler  of  the  two  at  litigation,  and  had  to  shake  the  plum 
tree  instead  of  sitting  under  it  and  opening  his  mouth 
for  the  windfalls.     Mr.  Chitty  was  No.  2. 

But  these  sharp  practitioners  are  often  very  good- 
natured  ;  and  so,  looking  at  the  pleading  widow  and  the 
beaming  boy,  he  felt  disposed  to  oblige  them,  and  rather 
sorry  he  could  not.     He  said  his  was  a  small  office,  and 


PERSEVERANCE. 


21 


he  had  no  clerk's  place  vacant ;  "  and,  indeed,  if  I  had, 
he  is  too  young ;  why  he  is  a  mere  child !  " 

"  I  am  twelve  next  so-and-so,"  said  the  boy,  giving  the 

month  and  day. 

"You  don't  look  it,  then,"  said  Mr.  Chitty  incredu- 
lously. 

"  Indeed,  but  he  is,  sir,"  said  the  widow ;  "  he  never 
looked  his  age,  and  writes  a  beautiful  hand." 

"  But  I  tell  you  I  have  no  vacancy,"  said  Mr.  Chitty, 
turning  dogged. 

"  Well,  thank  you,  sir,  all  the  same,"  said  the  widow 
with  the  patience  of  her  sex.  "  Come,  Robert,  we  mustn't 
detain  the  gentleman." 

So  they  turned  away  with  disappointment  marked  on 
their  faces,  the  boy's  especially. 

Then  Mr.  Chitty  said  in  a  hesitating  way :  "  To  be 
sure,  there  is  a  vacancy,  but  it  is  not  the  sort  of  thing 
for  you." 

"  What  is  it,  sir,  if  you  please  ?  "  asked  the  widow. 
"  Well,  we  want  an  office  boy." 

"  An  office  boy  !  What  do  you  say,  Robert  ?  I  sup- 
pose it  is  a  beginning,  sir.  What  will  he  have  to  do  ?  " 
"  Why,  sweep  the  office,  run  errands,  carry  papers  — 
and  that  is  not  what  he  is  after.  Look  at  him  —  he  has 
got  that  eye  of  his  fixed  on  a  counsellor's  wig,  you  may 
depend ;  and  sweeping  a  country  attorney's  office  is  not 
the  stepping-stone  to  that."  He  added  warily,  "  at  least, 
there  is  no  precedent  reported." 

"  La !  sir,"  said  the  widow,  "  he  only  wants  to  turn  an 
honest  penny,  and  be  among  law-papers." 

"  Ay,  ay,  to  write  'em  and  sell  'em,  but  not  to  dust 

'em ! " 

"For  that  matter,  sir,  I  believe  he'd  rather  be  the 


22  READIANA. 

dust  itself  in  your  office  than  bide  at  home  with  me." 
Here  she  turned  angry  with  her  offspring  for  half  a 
moment. 

'*  And  so  T  would,"  said  young  master  stoutly,  endors- 
ing his  mother's  hyperbole  very  boldly,  though  his  own 
mind  was  not  of  that  kind  which  originates  metaphors, 
similes,  and  engines  of  inaccuracy  in  general. 

"  Then  I  say  no  more,"  observed  Mr.  Chitty ;  "  only 
mind,  it  is  half-a-crown  a  week  —  that  is  all." 

The  terms  were  accepted,  and  Master  Kobert  entered 
on  his  humble  duties.  He  was  steady,  persevering,  and 
pushing ;  in  less  than  two  years  he  got  promoted  to  be  a 
copying  clerk.  From  this  in  due  course  he  became  a 
superior  clerk.  He  studied,  pushed  and  persevered,  till 
at  last  he  became  a  fair  practical  lawyer,  and  Mr.  Chitty's 
head  clerk.     And  so  much  for  Perseverance. 

He  remained  some  years  in  this  position,  trusted  by 
his  employer  and  respected  too ;  for  besides  his  special 
gifts  as  a  law  clerk,  he  was  strict  in  morals,  and  religious 
without  parade. 

In  those  days  country  attorneys  could  not  fly  to  the 
metropolis  and  back  to  dinner.  They  relied  much  on 
London  attorneys,  their  agents.  Lawyer  Chitty's  agent 
was  Mr.  Bishop,  a  judge's  clerk;  but  in  those  days  a 
judge's  clerk  had  an  insufficient  stipend,  and  was  al- 
lowed to  eke  it  out  by  private  practice.  Mr.  Bishop  was 
agent  to  several  country  attorneys.  Well,  Chitty  had  a 
heavy  case  coming  on  at  the  assizes,  and  asked  Bishop  to 
come  down  for  once  in  a  way  and  help  him  in  person. 
Bishop  did  so,  and  in  working  the  case  was  delighted 
with  Chitty's  managing  clerk.  Before  leaving,  he  said 
he  sadly  wanted  a  managing  clerk  he  could  rely  on. 
Would  Mr.  Chitty  oblige  him  and  part  with  this  young 
man? 


PERSEVERANCE.  23 

Chitty  made  rather  a  wry  face,  and  said  that  young 
man  was  a  pearl.  "  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do  with- 
out him ;  why,  he  is  my  alter  egoJ^ 

However,  he  ended  by  saying  generously  that  he  would 
not  stand  in  the  young  man's  way.  Then  they  had  the 
clerk  in  and  put  the  question  to  him. 

"  Sir,"  said  he,  "  it  is  the  ambition  of  my  heart  to  go 
to  London." 

Twenty-four  hours  after  that,  our  humble  hero  was 
installed  in  Mr.  Bishop's  office,  directing  a  large  business 
in  town  and  country.  He  filled  that  situation  for  many 
years,  and  got  to  be  well  known  in  the  legal  profession. 
A  brother  of  mine,  who  for  years  was  one  of  a  firm  of 
solicitors  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  remembers  him  well 
at  this  period ;  and  to  have  met  him  sometimes  in  his 
own  chambers  and  sometimes  in  Judge's  Chambers ;  my 
brother  says  he  could  not  help  noticing  him,  for  he 
bristled  with  intelligence,  and  knew  a  deal  of  law,  though 
he  looked  a  boy. 

The  best  of  the  joke  is  that  this  clerk  afterwards 
turned  out  to  be  four  years  older  than  that  solicitor  who 
took  him  for  a  boy. 

He  was  now  amongst  books  as  well  as  lawyers,  and 
studied  closely  the  principles  of  law  whilst  the  practice 
was  sharpening  him.  He  was  much  in  the  courts,  and 
every  case  there  cited  in  argument  or  judgment  he 
hunted  out  in  the  books,  and  digested  it,  together  with 
its  application  in  practice  by  the  living  judge,  who  had 
quoted,  received,  or  evaded  it.  He  was  a  Baptist,  and 
lodged  with  a  Baptist  minister  and  his  two  daughters. 
He  fell  in  love  with  one  of  them,  proposed  to  her,  and 
was  accepted.  The  couple  were  married  without  pomp, 
and  after  the  ceremony  the   good  minister  took  them 


24  KEADIANA. 

aside,  and  said,  "  I  have  only  £200  in  the  world  ;  I  have 
saved  it  a  little  at  a  time  for  my  two  daughters.  Here 
is  your  share,  my  children.  Then  he  gave  his  daughter 
£100,  and  she  handed  it  to  the  bridegroom  on  the  spot. 
The  good  minister  smiled  approvingly  and  they  sat  down 
to  what  fine  folks  call  breakfast,  but  they  called  dinner, 
and  it  was. 

After  dinner  and  the  usual  ceremonies,  the  bridegroom 
rose  and  surprised  them  a  little.  He  said,  "  I  am  very 
sorry  to  leave  you,  but  I  have  a  particular  business  to 
attend  to  ;  it  will  take  me  just  one  hour." 

Of  course  there  was  a  look  or  two  interchanged,  es- 
pecially by  every  female  there  present;  but  the  confi- 
dence in  him  was  too  great  to  be  disturbed ;  and  this 
was  his  first  eccentricity. 

He  left  them,  went  to  Gray's  Inn,  put  down  his  name 
as  a  student  for  the  Bar ;  paid  away  his  wife's  doAvry  in 
the  fees  and  returned  within  the  hour. 

Next  day  the  married  clerk  was  at  the  office  as  usual, 
and  entered  on  a  twofold  life.  He  worked  as  a  clerk  till 
five,  dined  in  the  Hall  of  Gray's  Inn  as  a  sucking  barris- 
ter :  and  studied  hard  at  night.  This  was  followed  by  a 
still  stronger  example  of  duplicate  existence,  and  one  with- 
out a  parallel  in  my  reading  and  experience  —  he  became 
a  writer,  and  produced  a  masterpiece,  which,  as  regarded 
the  practice  of  our  courts,  became  at  once  the  manual  of 
attorneys,  council,  and  judges. 

The  author,  though  his  book  was  entitled  "practice," 
showed  some  qualities  of  a  jurist,  and  corrected  soberly 
but  firmly  unscientific  legislature  and  judicial  blunders. 

So  here  was  a  student  of  Gray's  Inn,  supposed  to  be 
picking  up  in  that  Inn  a  small  smattering  of  law,  yet, 
to  diversify  his  crude  studies,  instructing  mature  coun- 


PERSEVERANCE.  25 

sel  and  correcting  the  judges  themselves,  at  whose 
chambers  he  attended  daily,  cap  in  hand,  a^  an  attor- 
ney's clerk.  There's  an  intellectual  hotch-potch  for  you ! 
All  this  did  not  in  his  Inn  qualify  him  to  be  a  barrister ; 
but  years  and  dinners  did.  After  some  weary  years  he 
took  the  oaths  at  Westminster,  and  vacated  by  that  act 
his  place  in  Bishop's  office,  and  was  a  pauper  —  for  an 
afternoon. 

But  work,  that  has  been  long  and  tediously  prepared, 
can  be  executed  quickly ;  and  adverse  circumstances, 
when  Perseverance  conquers  them,  turn  round  and  be- 
come allies. 

The  ex-clerk  and  young  barrister  had  ploughed  and 
sowed  with  such  pains  and  labour,  that  he  reaped  with 
comparative  ease.  Half  the  managing  clerks  in  London 
knew  him  and  believed  in  him.  They  had  the  ear  of 
their  employers,  and  brought  him  pleadings  to  draw  and 
motions  to  make.  His  book,  too,  brought  him  clients ; 
and  he  was  soon  in  full  career  as  a  junior  counsel  and 
special  pleader.  Senior  counsel  too  found  that  they 
could  rely  upon  his  zeal,  accuracy,  and  learning.  They 
began  to  request  that  he  might  be  retained  with  them  in 
difficult  cases,  and  he  became  first  junior  counsel  at  the 
bar  :  and  so  much  for  Perseverance. 

Time  rolled  its  ceaseless  course,  and  a  silk  gown  was 
at  his  disposal.  Now,  a  popular  junior  counsel  cannot 
always  afford  to  take  silk,  as  they  call  it.  Indeed,  if 
he  is  learned,  but  not  eloquent,  he  may  ruin  himself  by 
the  change.  But  the  remarkable  man,  whose  career  I  am 
epitomising,  did  not  hesitate  ;  he  still  pushed  onward, 
and  so  one  morning  the  Lord  Chancellor  sat  for  an 
hour  in  the  Queen's  Bench,  and  Mr.  Robert  Lush  was 
appointed  one  of  Her  Majesty's  Counsel  learned  in  the 


26  READTANA. 

Law,  and  then  and  there,  by  the  Chancellor's  invitation, 
stepped  from  among  the  juniors  and  took  his  seat  within 
the  Bar.     So  much  for  Perseverance. 

From  this  point  the  outline  of  his  career  is  known  to 
everybody.  He  was  appointed  in  1865  one  of  the 
Judges  of  the  Queen's  Bench,  and,  after  sitting  in  that 
Court  some  years,  was  promoted  to  be  a  Lord  Justice 
of  Appeal. 

A  few  days  ago  he  died,  lamented  and  revered  by  the 
legal  profession,  which  is  very  critical,  and  does  not  be- 
stow its  respect  lightly. 

I  knew  him  only  as  Queen's  Counsel.  I  had  him 
against  me  once,  but  oftener  for  me,  because  my  brother 
thought  him  even  then  the  best  lawyer  and  the  most 
zealous  at  the  Bar,  and  always  retained  him  if  he  could. 
During  the  period  I  knew  him  personally,  Mr.  Lush  had 
still  a  plump,  unwrinkled  face,  and  a  singularly  bright 
eye.  His  voice  was  full,  mellow,  and  penetrating ;  it 
filled  the  Court  without  apparent  effort,  and  accorded 
well  with  his  style  of  eloquence,  which  was  what 
Cicero  calls  the  temporatum  genus  loquendi. 

Reasoning  carried  to  perfection  is  one  of  the  fine  arts ; 
an  argument  by  Lush  enchained  the  ear  and  charmed 
the  understanding.  He  began  at  the  beginning,  and  each 
succeeding  topic  was  articulated  and  disposed  of,  and 
succeeded  by  its  right  successor,  in  language  so  fit  and 
order  so  lucid,  that  he  rooted  and  grew  conviction  in  the 
mind.      Tantum  series  nexuraqiie  pollent. 

I  never  heard  him  at  Nisi  Prius,  but  should  think  he 
could  do  nothing  ill,  yet  would  be  greater  at  convincing 
judges  than  at  persuading  juries  right  or  wrong ;  for  at 
this  pastime  he  would  have  to  escape  from  the  force  of 
his  understanding  j  whereas  I  have  known  counsel  bla- 


PEESEVEKANCE.  27 

tant  and  admired,  whom  Nature  and  flippant  fluency 
had  secured  against  that  difiB.cultj. 

He  was  affable  to  clients,  and  I  had  more  than  one 
conversation  with  him,  very  interesting  to  me.  But  to 
intrude  these  would  be  egotistical,  and  disturb  the  just 
proportions  of  this  short  notice.  I  hope  some  lawyer 
who  knew  him  well  as  counsel  and  judge,  will  give  us 
his  distinctive  features,  if  it  is  only  to  correct  those 
vague  and  colourless  notices  of  him  that  have  appeared. 

This  is  due  to  the  legal  profession.  But,  after  all,  his 
early  career  interests  a  much  wider  circle.  We  cannot 
all  be  judges :  but  we  can  all  do  great  things  by  the  per- 
severance, which,  from  an  office  boy,  made  this  man  a 
clerk,  a  counsel,  and  a  judge.  Do  but  measure  the  diffi- 
culties he  overcame  in  his  business  with  the  difficulties 
of  rising  in  any  art,  profession,  or  honourable  walk ;  and 
down  with  despondency's  whine,  and  the  groans  of  self- 
deceiving  laziness.  You  who  have  youth  and  health, 
never  you  quail 

"  At  those  twin  gaolers  of  the  daring  heart, 
Low  birth  and  iron  fortune." 

See  what  becomes  of  those  two  bugbears  when  the 
stout  champion  Sixgle-heart  and  the  giant  Persever- 
ance take  them  by  the  throat. 

Why  the  very  year  those  chilling  lines  were  first  given 
to  the  public  by  Bulwer  and  Macready,  Eobert  Lush 
paid  his  wife's  dowry  away  to  Gray's  Inn  in  fees,  and 
never  whined  nor  doubted  nor  looked  right  nor  left,  but 
went  straight  on  —  and  prevailed. 

Genius  and  talent  may  have  their  bounds  —  but  to 
the  power  of  single-hearted  perseverance  there  is  no 
known  limit. 


28  READIANA. 

Non  omnis  wortuus  est;  the  departed  judge  still 
teaches  from  his  tomb ;  his  dicta  will  outlive  him  in  our 
English  Courts ;  his  gesta  are  for  mankind. 

Such  an  instance  of  single-heartedness,  perseverance 
and  proportionate  success  in  spite  of  odds  is  not  for  one 
narrow  inland,  but  the  globe;  an  old  man  sends  it  to 
the  young  in  both  hemispheres  with  this  comment :  If 
difficulties  lie  in  the  way,  never  shirk  them,  but  think  of 
Eobert  Lush,  and  trample  on  them.  If  impossibilities 
encounter  you  —  up  hearts  and  at  'em. 

One  thing  more  to  those  who  would  copy  Robert  Lush 
in  all  essentials.  Though  impregnated  from  infancy 
with  an  honourable  ambition,  he  remembered  his  Creator 
in  the  days  of  his  youth ;  nor  did  he  forget  Him,  when 
the  world  poured  its  honours  on  him,  and  those  insidious 
temptations  of  prosperity,  which  have  hurt  the  soul  far 
oftener  than  ^^  low  birth  and  iron  fortune."  He  flour- 
ished in  a  sceptical  age ;  yet  he  lived  and  died,  fearing 
God. 


A   HEEO   A2sD   A   MARTYR.  29 


A   HERO   AND   A   MARTYR. 

There  is  an  old  man  in  Glasgow,  who  has  saved  more 
than  forty  lives  in  the  Clyde,  many  of  them  with  great 
peril  to  his  own.  Death  has  lately  removed  a  French 
hero,  who  was  his  rival,  and  James  Lambert  now  stands 
alone  in  Europe.  The  Frenchman  saved  more  lives  than 
Lambert,  but  then  he  did  most  of  his  good  work  with  a 
boat  and  saving  gear.  The  Scot  had  nothing  but  his  own 
active  body,  his  rare  power  of  suspending  the  breath, 
and  his  lion  heart.  Two  of  his  feats  far  surpass  any- 
thing recorded  of  his  French  competitor :  he  was  upset 
in  a  boat  with  many  companions,  seized  and  dragged  to 
the  bottom,  yet  contrived  to  save  nearly  them  all ;  and 
on  another  occasion,  when  the  ice  had  broken  under  a 
man,  and  the  tide  had  sucked  him  under  to  a  distance  of 
several  yards,  James  Lambert  dived  under  the  ice,  and 
groped  for  the  man  till  he  was  nearly  breathless,  and 
dragged  him  back  to  the  hole,  and  all  but  died  in  saving 
him.  Here  the  chances  were  nine  to  one  against  his 
ever  finding  that  small  aperture  again,  and  coming  out 
alive.  Superior  in  daring  to  his  one  European  rival,  he 
has  yet  another  title  to  the  sympathy  of  mankind ;  he 
is  blind :  and  not  by  any  irrelevant  accident,  but  in  con- 
sequence of  his  heroism  and  his  goodness.  He  was 
working  at  a  furnace  one  wintry  day,  and  perspiring 
freely.  The  cry  got  up  that  a  man  was  drowning.  He 
flung  himself,  all  heated  as  he  was,  into  icy  water,  and. 


30  READIANA. 

when  he  came  out,  he  lost  his  sight  for  a  time  on  the 
very  bank.  His  sight  returned  :  but  ever  after  that  day 
he  was  subject  to  similar  seizures.  They  became  more 
frequent,  and  the  intervals  of  sight  more  rare  until  the 
darkness  settled  down,  and  the  light  retired  for  ever. 

The  meaning  of  the  word  "  martyr  "  is  —  a  man  who 
is  punished  for  a  great  virtue  by  a  great  calamity. 
Every  martyr  in  Foxe's  book,  or  Butler's,  or  the  "  Acta 
Sanctorum,"  or  the  "Vitae  Patrum  Occidentis,"  comes 
under  that  definition ;  but  not  more  so  than  James  Lam- 
bert ;  and  the  hero  who  risks  his  life  in  saving,  is  just 
as  much  a  hero  as  he  who  risks  his  life  in  killing,  his 
fellow-creatures.  Therefore  I  do  not  force  nor  pervert 
words,  but  weigh  them  well,  when  I  call  James  Lambert 
what  he  is  —  a  hero  and  a  martyr.  That  is  a  great  deal 
to  say  of  any  one  man ;  for  all  of  us  who  are  really  men 
or  women,  and  not,  as  Lambert  once  said  to  me,  "  mere 
broom-besoms  in  the  name  o'  men,"  admire  a  hero,  and 
pity  a  martyr,  alive  or  dead. 

In  espousing  this  hero's  cause  I  do  but  follow  a  worthy 
example.  Mr.  Hugh  M'Donald  was  a  Glasgow  citizen, 
and  a  man  known  by  many  acts  of  charity  and  public 
feeling.  He  revealed  to  the  Glasgow  public  the  very  ex- 
istence of  Burns'  daughter,  and  awakened  a  warm  inter- 
est in  her ;  and  in  1856  he  gave  the  city  an  account  of 
James  Lambert's  deeds  and  affliction,  and  asked  a  sub- 
scription. Glasgow  responded  warmly ;  £260  was 
raised,  and  afterwards  £70.  The  sum  total  was  banked, 
and  doled  to  James  Lambert  ten  shillings  per  week. 
However,  the  subscribers  made  one  great  mistake,  they 
took  for  granted  Lambert  would  not  outlive  their  money  : 
but  he  has. 

In  1868,  having  read  Mr.  M'Donald's  account,  I  visited 


A    HERO    AND    A   MARTYR.  31 

Lambert,  and  heard  Ms  story.     Being  now  blind,  and 
compelled  to  live  in  the  past,  he  had  a  vivid  recollection 
of  his  greatest  deeds  and  told  me  them  with  spirit.     I, 
who  am  a  painstaking  man,  and  owe  my  success  to  it, 
wrote  down  the  particulars,  and  the  very  words  that,  he 
said,  had  passed  on  these  grand  occasions.     Next  day,  I 
took  the  blind  hero  down  to  the  Clyde,  whose  every  bend 
he  knew  at  that  time,  and  made  him  repeat  to  me  every 
principal  incident  on  its  own  spot.     From  that    day  I 
used  to  send  James  Lambert  money  and  clothes  at  odd 
times ;  but  I  did  not  write  about  him  for  years.     How- 
ever, in  1874,   I  published  my  narrative  (entitled  "A 
Hero  and  a  Martyr")  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  London, 
the  Tribune,  New  York,  and  a  shilling  pamphlet  with  a 
fine  engraving  of  James  Lambert.     I  invited  a  subscrip- 
tion, and,  avoiding  the  error  of  the  former  subscribers, 
announced  from  the  first  that  it  should  be  directed  to 
buying  James  Lambert  a  small  annuity  for  life.     The 
printed  story  flew  round  the  world.     Letters  and  small 
subscriptions  poured  in  from  every  part  of  England,  and 
in  due  course  from  Calcutta,  from  the  Australian  capi- 
tals, from  New  York,  Boston,  San  Francisco,  and  even 
from  Valparaiso  in  Chili.     An  American  boy  sent  me  a 
dollar  from  New  Orleans.     Two  American  children  sent 
me    a  dollar  from  Chicago.     A  warm-hearted  Glasgow 
man  wrote  to  me  with  rapture  from  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, to  say  every  word  was  true;  he  remembered 
blythe  Jamie  well,  and  his  unrivalled  reputation;    re- 
membered his  saving  the  mill-girls,  and  added  an  inci- 
dent to  my  narrative,  that  in  all  the  horror  of  the  scene 
James  Lambert's  voice  had  been  heard  from  the  bank 
shouting  lustly,  "  Dinna  grip  my  arms,  lassies  :  hing  on 
to  my  skirts."     The  English  papers  quoted  largely  from 


32  READIANA. 

the  narrative  and  recommended  the  subscriptions.  But, 
whilst  the  big  world  rang  with  praises  of  the  Glasgow 
hero,  and  thrilled  with  pity  for  the  Glasgow  martyr,  de- 
tractors and  foes  started  up  in  a  single  city.  And  what 
was  the  name  of  'that  city  ?  Was  it  Kome  jealous  for 
Regulus  and  Quintus  Curtius  ?  Was  it  Tarsus  jealous 
for  St.  Paul  ?  Was  it  Edinburgh,  Liverpool,  Paris, 
or  Washington  ?  Oh,  dear  no :  marvellous  to  relate, 
it  was  Glasgow,  the  City  of  Hugh  Macdonald,  the 
hero's  0"\vn  birthplace,  —  and  the  town  which  the  world 
honours  for  having  produced  him.  These  detractors 
deny  James  Lambert's  exploits,  or  say  they  were  few  and 
small,  not  many  and  great.  They  treat  his  blindness 
and  its  cause  as  a  mere  irrelevant  trifle,  and  pretend  he 
squandered  the  last  subscription  —  which  is  a  lie,  for  he 
never  had  the  control  of  it,  and  it  lasted  ten  years. 
Scribblers  who  get  drunk  three  times  a  week,  pretend 
that  Lambert  —  who,  by  the  admission  of  his  enemy 
McEwen,  has  not  been  drunk  once  these  last  five  years 
—  is  an  habitual  drunkard,  and  that  they,  of  all  people, 
are  shocked  at  it.  Need  I  say  that  these  detractors  from 
merit  and  misfortune  are  anonymous  writers  in  the 
"  Glasgow  Press."  It  does  not  follow  they  are  all  natives 
of  Glasgow.  Two  of  them,  at  least,  are  dirty  little 
penny-a-liners  from  London.  The  public  knows  nothing 
about  the  Press,  and  is  easily  gulled  by  it.  But  I  know 
all  about  the  Press,  inside  and  out,  and  shall  reveal  the 
true  motive  of  the  little  newspaper  conspiracy  against 
Lambert  and  Reade.  It  is  just  the  jealousy  of  the  little 
provincial  scribbler  maddened  by  the  overwhelming  su- 
periority of  the  national  writer.  I'll  put  the  minds  of 
those  quill-drivers  into  words  for  you.  "  Curse  it  all ! 
there   was  a  hero  and   a  martyr  in   our  midst,  and  we 


A   HERO   AND   A   MARTYR.  33 

hadn't  the  luck  to  spot  him.  [In  reality  they  had  not 
brains  enough  in  their  skulls  nor  blood  enough  in  their 
hearts  to  spot  him.  But  it  is  their  creed,  that  superior 
discernment  is  all  luck.]  Then  comes  this  cursed  Eng- 
lishman and  hits  the  theme  we  missed.  What  can  we 
pigmies  do  now  to  pass  for  giants  ?  It's  no  use  our 
telling  the  truth  and  playing  second  fiddle.  No  —  our 
only  chance  now,  to  give  ourselves  importance,  is  to  hiss 
down  both  the  hero  and  his  chronicler.  If  we  call  Lam- 
bert an  impostor  and  a  drunkard,  and  Heade  a  mercenary 
fool,  honest  folk  will  never  divine  that  we  are  ourselves 
the  greatest  drunkards,  the  greatest  dunces,  and  the 
most  habitual  liars  in  the  city."  That  was  the  little 
game  of  the  Glasgow  penny-a-liners,  and  twopence  a- 
liars ;  and  every  man  in  Scotland,  who  knows  the  pro- 
vincial Press,  saw  through  these  caitiffs  at  a  glance.  But 
the  public  is  weak  and  credulous.  Now,  they  might  as 
well  bay  the  moon  as  bark  at  me ;  I  stand  too  high 
above  their  reach  in  the  just  respect  of  the  civilized 
world.  But  they  can  hurt  James  Lambert,  because  he 
is  their  townsman.  Therefore,  I  interfere  and  give  the 
citizens  of  Glasgow  the  key  to  the  Glasgow  backbiters 
of  a  Glasgow  hero  and  martyr.  I  add  one  proof  that 
this  is  the  true  key.  The  exploits  and  the  calamity  of 
James  Lambert  were  related  by  Hugh  Macdonald  eigh- 
teen years  ago  Avhen  proofs  were  plentiful.  If  they 
were  true  eighteen  years  ago  how  can  they  be  false  now  ? 
Answer  me  that,  honest  men  of  Glasgow,  who  don't 
scribble  in  papers  and  call  black  white.  Can  facts  be 
true  when  told  by  a  Glasgow  man,  yet  turn  false  when 
told  by  an  Englishman  ???!!!  Now  observe  —  they 
might  have  shown  their  clannishness  as  nobly  as  they 
have  shown  it  basely.      There  are  brave  men  in  Eng- 


34  READIANA. 

laiul  —  many  ;  and  unfortunate  men  —  many  ;  whom  a 
powerful  English  writer  could  celebrate.  But  no  —  he 
selects  a  Scotchman  for  his  theme,  and  makes  the  great 
globe  admire  him,  and  moves  England  to  pity  him  and 
provide  for  him.  Any  Scotch  writer  worthy  of  the 
name  of  Scotchman,  or  man,  observing  this,  would  have 
said  —  "  Well,  this  English  chap  is  not  narrow-minded 
any  way.  You  need  not  be  a  Cockney  to  win  his  heart 
and  gain  his  pen.  He  is  warmer  about  this  Glasgow 
man,  than  we  ever  knew  him  to  be  about  a  south  coun- 
try-man. It  is  a  good  example.  Let  us  try  and  rise  to 
his  level,  and  shake  hands  with  the  Southron  over  poor 
Jamie  Lambert.  This  is  how  every  Scotsman,  worthy 
of  the  name,  would  have  felt  and  argued.  But  these 
Glasgow  scribblers  are  few  of  them  Scotsmen,  and  none 
of  them  men.  The  line  they  have  taken  in  vilifying  a 
blind  man,  who  lost  his  sight  by  benevolent  heroism,  is 
one  that  hell  chuckles  at,  and  man  recoils  from.  They 
have  disgraced  the  city  of  Glasgow  and  human  nature 
itself.  AVhatever  may  be  the  faults  of  the  working 
classes,  they  are  MEjST.  Anonymous  slanderers  and  de- 
tractors are  not  men  —  they  are  mere  lumps  of  human 
hlth.  I  therefore  ask  the  operatives  of  Glasgow;  and 
the  manly  citizens,  to  shake  off  these  lumps  of  dirt  and 
detraction,  and  aid  me  to  take  the  Glasgow  hero  and 
martyr  out  of  all  his  troubles. 

The  Frenchman  I  have  mentioned  had  one  great  title 
to  sympathy,  whereas  Lambert  has  two  ;  and  this  is  how 
France  treated  her  heroic  son.  —  He  lived  at  the  public 
expense,  but  free  as  air.  The  public  benefactor  was  not 
locked  up  and  hidden  from  the  public.  His  breast  was 
emblazoned  with  medals,  and  amongst  them  shone  the 
great  national  order,  the  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour, 


A   HERO   AND   A   INIARTYR.  35 

which  many  distinguished  noblemen  and  gentlemen 
have  sighed  for  in  vain ;  and  when  he  walked  abroad 
every  gentleman  in  the  country  doffed  his  hat  to  him. 
Thus  does  France  treat  a  great  saver  of  human  lives. 
James  Lambert  lives  at  the  public  expense,  but  not  as 
that  Frenchman  lived.  It  grieves  my  heart  to  say  it ; 
but  the  truth  is,  James  Lambert  lives  unhappily.  He  is 
in  an  almshouse,  which  partakes  of  the  character  of  a 
prison.  It  is  a  gloomy,  austere  place,  and  that  class  of 
inmates,  to  which  he  belongs,  are  not  allowed  to  cross 
the  threshold  upon  their  own  business,  except  once  in  a 
fortnight.  But  to  ardent  spirits  loss  of  liberty  is  misery. 
Meanly  clad,  poorly  fed,  well  imprisoned,  and  little  re- 
spected —  such  is  the  condition  of  James  Lambert  in 
Glasgow,  his  native  city.  Yet  he  is  the  greatest  man  in 
that  city,  and  one  of  the  very  few  men  now  living  in  it, 
whose  name  will  ring  in  history  a  hundred  years  hence ; 
the  greatest  saver  of  lives  in  Europe ;  a  man  whose 
name  is  even  now  honoured  in  India  and  Australia,  in 
the  United  States  and  Canada,  and  indeed  from  the 
rising  to  the  setting  sun,  thanks  to  his  own  merit,  the 
power  of  the  pen,  and  the  circulation  of  the  press  —  a 
true  hero  and  a  true  martyr,  glorious  by  his  deeds  and 
sacred  by  his  calamity. 


36  BEADIAIMA. 


A   DRAMATIC   MUSICIAN. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Era." 

Sir,  —  There  died  the  other  day  in  London  a  musi- 
cian, who  used  to  compose,  or  set,  good  music  to  orches- 
tral instruments,  and  play  it  in  the  Theatre  with  spirit 
and  taste,  and  to  watch  the  stage  with  one  eye  and  the 
orchestra  with  another,  and  so  accompany  with  vigilant 
delicacy  a  mixed  scene  of  action  and  dialogue ;  to  do 
which  the  music  must  be  full  when  the  actor  works  in 
silence,  but  subdued  promptly  as  often  as  the  actor 
speaks.  Thus  it  enhances  the  action  without  drowning 
a  spoken  line. 

These  are  varied  gifts,  none  of  them  common,  and 
music  is  a  popular  art.  One  would  think,  then,  that 
such  a  composer  and  artist  would  make  his  fortune  now- 
adays. Not  so.  Mr.  Edwin  Ellis  lived  sober,  laborious, 
prudent,  respected,  and  died  poor.  He  was  provident 
and  insured  his  life ;  he  had  a  family  and  so  small  an 
income  that  he  could  not  keep  up  the  insurance.  He 
has  left  a  wife  and  nine  children  utterly  destitute,  and 
he  could  not  possibly  help  it.  The  kindest-hearted  Pro- 
fession in  the  world  —  though  burdened  with  many 
charitable  claims  —  will  do  what  it  can  for  them  ;  but  I 
do  think  the  whole  weight  ought  not  to  fall  upon  actors 
and  musicians.  The  man  was  a  better  servant  of  the 
public  than  people  are  aware,  and  therefore  I  ask  leave 


A   DE ASIATIC   MUSICIAN.  37 

to  say  a  few  words  to  the  public  and  to  the  Press  over 
his  ill-remunerated  art,  and  his  untimely  grave. 

Surely  the  prizes  of  the  Theatre  are  dealt  too  un- 
evenly, when  such  a  man  for  his  compositions  and  his 
performance  receives  not  half  the  salary  of  many  a  third 
class  performer  on  the  stage,  works  his  heart  out,  never 
wastes  a  shilling,  and  dies  without  one. 

No  individual  is  to  blame  ;  but  the  system  seems  in- 
discriminating  and  unjust,  and  arises  from  a  special 
kind  of  ignorance,  which  is  very  general,  but  I  think 
and  hope  is  curable. 

Dramatic  effects  are  singularly  complex,  and  they 
cannot  really  be  understood  unless  they  are  decomposed. 
But  it  is  rare  to  find,  out  of  the  Theatre,  a  mind  accus- 
tomed to  decompose  them.  The  writer  is  constantly 
blamed  for  the  actor's  misinterpretation,  and  the  actor 
for  the  writer's  feebleness.  Indeed,  the  general  inability 
to  decompose  and  so  discriminate  goes  so  far  as  this  — 
You  hear  an  author  gravely  accused  by  a  dozen  com- 
mentators of  writing  a  new  play  four  hours  long.  Of 
those  four  hours  the  stage-carpenter  occupied  one  hour 
and  thirty  minutes.  Yet  they  ascribe  that  mechanic's 
delay  to  the  lines  and  delivery,  when  all  the  time  it 
was  the  carpenter,  who  had  not  rehearsed  his  part,  and 
therefore  kept  the  author  and  the  actors  waiting  just  as 
long  as  he  did  the  audience. 

Where  the  habit  of  decomposing  effects  is  so  entirely 
absent,  it  follows,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  subtle, 
subsidiary  art  of  the  able  leader  is  not  distinguished, 
and  goes  for  nothing  in  the  public  estimate  of  a  play. 
I  suppose  two  million  people  have  seen  Shaun  the  Post 
escape  from  his  prison  by  mounting  the  ivy  tower,  and 
have  panted  at  the  view.     Of  those  two  million  how 


38  READIANA. 

many  are  aware  that  they  saw  with  the  ear  as  well  as 
the  eye,  and  that  much  of  their  emotion  was  caused  by 
a  mighty  melody,  such  as  effeminate  Italy  never  pro- 
duced —  and  never  will  till  she  breeds  more  men  and 
less  monks  —  being  played  all  the  time  on  the  great 
principle  of  climax,  swelling  higher  and  higher,  as  the 
hero  of  the  scene  mounted  and  surmounted  ?     Not  six 
in  the  two  million  spectators,  I  believe.     Mr.  Ellis  has 
lifted   scenes  and   situations  for  me  and  other  writers 
scores  of  times,  and  his  share  of  the  effect  never  been 
publicly  noticed.     When  he  had  a  powerful  action  or 
impassioned  dialogue  to  illustrate  he  did  not  habitually 
run  to  the   poor   resource   of  a   "  hurry "  or  a  nonsense 
"  tremolo,"  but  loved  to  find  an  appropriate  melody,  or  a 
rational   sequence   of  chords,  or  a  motived  strain,  that 
raised  the  scene  or  enforced  the  dialogue.     As  to  his 
other  qualities,  it  was  said  of  Caesar  that  he  was  a  gen- 
eral who  used  not  to  say  to  his  soldiers  "  go  "  but  "  come," 
and  that  is  how  Mr.  Ellis  led  an  orchestra.     He  showed 
them  how  to  play  with  spirit  by  doing  it  himself.     He 
was  none  of  your  sham  leaders  with  a  baton,  but  a  real 
leader  with  a  violin,  that  set  his  band  on  fire.     A  little 
while  before  he  died  he  tried  change  of  air,  by  the  kind 
permission  of  Messrs.  Gatti,  and  he  helped  me  doAvn  at 
Liverpool.     He  entered  a  small  orchestra  of  good  musi- 
cians that  had  become  languid.     He  waked  them  up 
directly,  and  they  played  such  fine  music  and  so  finely 
that  the  entr'acte  music  became  at  once  a  feature  of  the 
entertainment.     A  large  theatre  used  to  ring   nightly 
with  the  performance  of  fifteen  musicians  only ;  and  the 
Lancashire  lads,  who  know  what  is  good,  used  to  applaud 
so  loudly   and  persistently  that  Mr.   Ellis  had  to  rise 
nightly  in  the  orchestra  and  bow  to  them  before  the 
curtain  could  be  raised. 


A   DRAMATIC    MUSICIAX.  39 

Then  I  repeat  that  there  must  be  something  wrong  in 
the  scale  of  remuneration,  when  such  a  man  works  for 
many  years  and  dies  in  need,  without  improvidence.  In 
all  other  professions  there  are  low  rewards  and  high 
rewards.  On  what  false  principles  does  such  a  man  as 
Ellis  receive  the  same  pittance  as  a  mediocre  leader, 
who  doses  a  play  with  tremolo,  and  "  hurries,"  and  plays 
you  dead  with  polkas  between  the  acts,  and,  though 
playing  to  a  British  audience,  rarely  plays  a  British 
melody  but  to  destroy  it  by  wrong  time,  wrong  rhythm, 
coarse  and  slovenly  misinterpretation,  ploughing  immor- 
tal airs,  not  playing  them  ? 

I  respectfully  invite  the  Press  over  this  sad  grave,  to 
look  into  these  matters  —  to  adopt  the  habit  of  decom- 
posing all  the  complex  effects  of  a  theatre  ;  to  ignore 
nobody,  neither  artist  nor  mechanic,  who  effects  the  pub- 
lic ;  to  time  the  carpenters'  delays  on  a  first  night  and 
report  them  to  a  second ;  to  time  the  author's  lines  and 
report  their  time  to  a  minute ;  to  criticise  as  an  essential 
part  of  the  performance  the  music,  appropriate  or  inap- 
propriate, intelligent  or  brainless,  that  accompanies  the 
lines  and  action ;  and  not  even  to  ignore  the  quality  and 
execution  of  the  entr'acte  music.  A  thousand  people 
have  to  listen  to  it  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  and  those 
thousand  people  ought  not  to  be  swindled  out  of  a  part 
of  their  money  by  the  misinterpretation  of  Italian  over- 
tures or  by  the  everlasting  performance  of  polkas  and 
waltzes.  These  last  are  good  musical  accompaniments 
to  the  foot,  but  to  seated  victims  they  are  not  music,  but 
mere  rhythmical  thumps.  There  is  no  excuse  for  this 
eternal  trash,  since  the  stores  of  good  music  are  infinite. 

If  the  Press  will  deign  to  take  a  hint  from  me,  and  so 
set  themselves  to  decompose  and  discriminate,  plays  will 


40  READIANA. 

soon  be  played  quicker  on  a  first  night,  and  accomplished 
artists  like  Edwin  Ellis  will  not  work  hard,  live  soberly, 
and  die  poor.  Meantime,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  ask  the 
public  to  repair  in  some  degree  the  injustice  of  fortune. 
Millions  of  people  have  passed  happy  evenings  at  the 
Adelphi  Theatre.  Thousands  have  heard  Mr.  Ellis 
accompany  The  Wandering  Heir  and  between  the  acts 
play  his  "  Songs  without  Music  "  at  the  Queen's.  I  ask 
them  to  believe  me  that  this  deserving  and  unfortunate 
musician  caused  much  of  their  enjoyment  though  they 
were  not  conscious  of  it  at  the  time.  Those  spectators, 
and  all  who  favour  me  with  their  confidence  in  matters 
of  charity,  I  respectfully  invite  to  aid  the  Theatrical 
and  Musical  Professions  in  the  effort  they  are  now  mak- 
ing to  save  from  dire  destitution  the  widow  and  children 
of  that  accomplished  artist  and  worthy  man. 

I  am,  Sir,  yours  respectfully, 

CHAKLES   KEADE. 


DEATH  OF  WINWOOD  KEADE.         41 


DEATH   OF   WINWOOD   READE. 

From  the  "  Daily  Telegraph,"  April  26,  1876. 

We  regret  to  announce  the  death  of  Mr.  Winwood 
Reade,  well-known  as  an  African  traveller  and  corre- 
spondent, and  by  many  works  of  indubitable  power. 
This  remarkable  man  closed,  on  Saturday  last,  April  24, 
a  laborious  career,  cheered  with  few  of  Fortune's  smiles. 
As  a  youth  he  had  shown  a  singular  taste  for  natural 
science.  This,  however,  was  interrupted  for  some  years 
by  University  studies,  and  afterwards  by  an  honest  but 
unavailing  attempt  to  master  the  art  of  Fiction,  before 
possessing  sufficient  experience  of  life.  He  produced, 
however,  two  or  three  novels  containing  some  good  and 
racy  scenes,  unskilfully  connected,  and  one  ("See-Saw,") 
which  is  a  well  constructed  tale.  He  also  published  an 
archseological  volume,  entitled  "  The  Vale  of  Isis."  The 
theories  of  M.  Du  Chaillu  as  to  the  power  and  aggressive 
character  of  the  gorilla  inflamed  Mr.  Reade's  curiosity 
and  awakened  his  dormant  genius.  He  raised  money 
upon  his  inheritance,  and  set  out  for  Africa  fully 
equipped.  He  hunted  the  gorilla  persistently,  and 
found  him  an  exceedingly  timorous  animal,  inaccessible 
to  European  sportsmen  in  the  thick  jungles  which  he 
inhabits.  Mr.  Reade  then  pushed  his  researches  an- 
other way.  On  his  return  he  published  "  Savage  Africa," 
a  remarkable  book,  both  in  matter  and  style. 

After  some  years,  devoted  to  general  science  and  anony- 


42  READIANA. 

mous  literature,  he  revisited  that  Continent  —  "  whose 
fatal  fascinations,"  as  he  himself  wrote,  "  no  one  having 
seen  and  suffered,  can  resist,"  and  this  time  penetrated 
deep  into  the  interior.  In  this  expedition  he  faced  many 
dangers  quite  alone,  was  often  stricken  down  with  fever, 
and  sometimes  in  danger  of  his  life  from  violence,  and 
once  was  taken  prisoner  by  cannibals.  His  quiet  forti- 
tude and  indomitable  will  carried  a  naturally  feeble  body 
through  it  all,  and  he  came  home  weak,  but  apparently 
uninjured  in  constitution.  He  now  published  two  vol- 
umes in  quick  succession —  "The  Martyrdom  of  Man," 
and  the  "  African  Sketchbook  "  —  both  of  which  have 
met  with  warm  admiration  and  severe  censure.  Mr. 
Reade  was  now,  nevertheless,  generally  recognised  by 
men  of  science,  and  particularly  by  Dr.  Darwin  and  his 
school.  In  November,  1873,  he  became  the  Times^  Cor- 
respondent in  the  Ashantee  war,  and,  as  usual,  did  not 
spare  himself.  From  this,  his  third  African  expedition, 
he  returned  a  broken  man.  The  mind  had  been  too 
strong  for  the  body,  and  he  was  obliged  to  halt  on  the 
way  home.  Early  in  this  present  year,  disease,  both  of 
the  heart  and  lungs,  declared  itself,  and  he  wasted  away 
slowly  but  inevitably.  He  wrote  his  last  work,  "  The 
Outcast,"  with  the  hand  of  death  upon  him.  Two  zeal- 
ous friends  carried  him  out  to  Wimbledon,  and  there,  for 
a  day  or  two,  the  air  seemed  to  revive  him ;  but  on  Fri- 
day night  he  began  to  sink,  and  on  Saturday  afternoon 
died,  in  the  arms  of  his  beloved  uncle,  Mr.  Charles 
Reade. 

The  writer  thus  cut  off  in  his  prime  entered  life  with 
excellent  prospects ;  he  was  heir  to  considerable  estates, 
and  gifted  with  genius.  But  he  did  not  live  long  enough 
to  inherit  the  one  or  to  mature  the  other.     His  whole 


DEATH  OF  WIXWOOD  KEADE.         43 

public  career  embraced  but  fifteen  years  ;  yet  in  another 
fifteen  he  would  probably  have  won  a  great  name,  and 
cured  himself,  as  many  thinking  men  have  done,  of  cer- 
tain obnoxious  opinions,  which  laid  him  open  to  reason- 
able censure,  and  also  to  some  bitter  personalities  that 
were  out  of  place,  since  truth  can  surely  prevail  without 
either  burning  or  abusing  men  whose  convictions  are 
erroneous  but  honest.  He  felt  these  acrimonious  com- 
ments, but  bore  them  mth  the  same  quiet  fortitude  by 
help  of  which  he  had  endured  his  sufferings  in  Africa, 
and  now  awaited  the  sure  approach  of  an  untimely  death 
at  home.  Mr.  Eeade  surpasses  most  of  the  travellers  of 
his  day  in  one  great  quality  of  a  writer  —  style.  His 
English,  founded  on  historical  models,  has  the  pomp  and 
march  of  words,  is  often  racy,  often  picturesque,  and 
habitually  powerful  yet  sober ;  ample  yet  not  turgid. 
He  died  in  his  37th  year. 


44  KEADIAKA. 


CPtEMONA   FIDDLES. 

From  the  "Pall  Mall  Gazette." 

FIRST   LETTER 

August  VJth,  1872. 

Under  this  heading,  for  want  of  a  better,  let  me  sing 
the  four-stringed  instruments,  that  were  made  in  Italy 
from  about  1560  to  ITGO,  and  varnished  with  high- 
coloured  yet  transparent  varnishes,  the  secret  of  which, 
known  to  numberless  families  in  1745,  had  vanished  off 
the  earth  by  1760,  and  has  now  for  fifty  years  baffled 
the  laborious  researches  of  violin  makers,  amateurs,  and 
chemists.  That  lost  art  I  will  endeavour  "to  restore  to 
the  world  through  the  medium  of  your  paper.  But  let 
me  begin  with  other  points  of  connoisseurship,  illustrat- 
ing them  as  far  as  possible  by  the  specimens  on  show  at 
the  South  Kensington  Museum. 

The  modern  orchestra  uses  four-stringed  instruments, 
played  with  the  bow  ;  the  smallest  is  the  king ;  its  con- 
struction is  a  marvel  of  art ;  and,  as  we  are  too  apt  to 
underrate  familiar  miracles,  let  me  analyze  this  wooden 
paragon,  by  way  of  showing  what  great  architects  in 
wood  those  Italians  were,  who  invented  this  instrument 
and  its  fellows  at  Brescia  and  Bologna.  The  violin  it- 
self, apart  from  its  mere  accessories,  consists  of  a  scroll 
or  head,  weighing  an  ounce  or  two,  a  slim  neck,  a  thin 


CEEMONA   FIDDLES.  45 

back,  that  ought  to  be  made  of  Swiss  sycamore,  a  thin 
belly  of  Swiss  deal,   and  sides  of   Swiss  sycamore  no 
thicker  than  a  sixpence.     This  little  wooden  shell  deliv- 
ers an  amount  of  sound  that  is  simply  monstrous ;  but,  to 
do  that,  it  must  submit  to  a  strain,  of  which  the  public 
has  no  conception.     Let  us  suppose  two  Claimants  to 
take  opposite  ends  of  a  violin-string,  and  to  pull  against 
each  other  with  all  their  weight;    the  tension  of   the 
string  so  produced  would  not  equal  the  tension  which  is 
created  by  the  screw  in  raising  that  string  to  concert 
pitch.     Consider,  then,  that  not  one  but  four  strings  tug 
night  and  day,  like  a  team  of  demons,  at  the  wafer-like 
sides  of  this  wooden  shell.     Why  does  it  not  collapse  ? 
Well,  it  would  collapse  with  a  crash,  long   before  the 
strings  reached  concert  pitch,  if  the  violin  was  not  a 
wonder  inside  as  well  as  out.     The  problem  was  to  with- 
stand that  severe  pressure  without  crippling  the  vast 
vibration  by  solidity.     The   inventors    approached   the 
dif&culty  thus :  they  inserted  six  blocks  of  lime,  or  some 
light  wood ;  one  of  these  blocks  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
violin,  one  at  the  upper,  and  one  at  each  corner  — the 
corner  blocks  very  small  and  triangular;  the  top  and 
bottom  blocks  much  larger,  and  shaped  like  a  capital  D, 
the  straight  line  of  the  block  lying  close  to  the  sides,  and 
the  curved  line  outwards.     Then  they  slightly  connected 
all  the  blocks  by  two  sets  of  linings ;   these  linings  are 
not  above  a  quarter  of  an  inch  deep,  I  suppose,  and  no 
thicker  than  an  old  penny  piece,  but  they  connect  those 
six  blocks  and  help  to  distribute  the  resistance. 

Even  so  the  shell  would  succumb  in  time ;  but  now  the 
inventor  killed  two  birds  with  one  stone ;  he  cunningly 
diverted  a  portion  of  the  pressure  by  the  very  means  that 
were  necessary  to  the  sound.     He  placed  the  bridge  on 


46  READIANA. 

tlie  belly  of  the  violin,  and  that  raised  the  strings  out  of 
the  direct  line  of  tension,  and  relieved  the  lateral  pres- 
sure at  the  expense  of  the  belly.  But  as  the  belly  is  a 
weak  arch,  it  must  now  be  strengthened  in  its  turn. 
Accordingly,  a  bass-bar  was  glued  horizontally  to  the 
belly  under  one  foot  of  the  bridge.  This  bass-bar  is  a 
very  small  piece  of  deal,  about  the  length  and  half  the 
size  of  an  old-fashioned  lead  pencil,  but,  the  ends  being 
tapered  off,  it  is  glued  on  to  the  belly,  with  a  spring  in 
it,  and  supports  the  belly  magically.  As  a  proof  how 
nicely  all  these  things  were  balanced,  the  bass-bar  of 
Gasparo  da  Salo,  the  Amati,  and  Stradiuarius,  being  a 
little  shorter  and  shallower  than  a  modern  bass-bar,  did 
admirably  for  their  day,  yet  will  not  do  now.  Our  raised 
concert  pitch  has  clapped  on  more  tension,  and  straight- 
way you  must  remove  the  bass-bar  even  of  Stradiuarius, 
and  substitute  one  a  little  longer  and  deeper,  or  your 
Cremona  sounds  like  a  strung  frying-pan. 

Remove  now  from  the  violin,  which  for  two  centuries 
has  endured  this  strain,  the  finger-board,  tail-piece,  tail- 
pin  and  screws  —  since  these  are  the  instruments  or  ve- 
hicles of  tension,  not  materials  of  resistance  —  and  weigh 
the  violin  itself.  It  weighs,  I  supj^ose,  about  twenty 
ounces  :  and  it  has  fought  hundredweights  of  pressure 
for  centuries.  A  marvel  of  construction,  it  is  also  a 
marvel  of  soimd ;  it  is  audible  farther  off  than  the  gigan- 
tic pianoforte,  and  its  tones  in  a  master's  hand  go  to  the 
heart  of  man.  It  can  be  prostituted  to  the  performance 
of  difficulties,  and  often  is ;  but  that  is  not  its  fault. 
Genius  can  make  your  very  heart  dance  with  it,  or  your 
eyes  to  fill;  and  Niel  Gow,  who  was  no  romancer,  but 
only  a  deeper  critic  than  his  fellows,  when  being  asked 
what  was  the  true  test  of  a  player,  replied,  "  A  mon  is 


CREMONA   FIDDLES.  47 


A    PLATER   WHEX    HE    CAN    GAR    HIMSEL'    GREET    Wl'    HIS 


Asking  forgiveness  for  this  preamble,  I  proceed  to  en- 
quire what  country  invented  these  four-stringed  and 
four-cornered  instruments  ? 

I  understand  that  France  and  Germany  have  of  late 
raised  some  pretensions.  Connoisseurship  and  etymology 
are  both  against  them.  Etymology  suffices.  The  French 
terms  are  all  derived  from  the  Italian,  and  that  disposes 
of  France.  I  will  go  into  German  pretensions  critically, 
if  any  one  will  show  me  as  old  and  specific  a  German 
word  as  viola  and  violino,  and  the  music  composed  for 
those  German  instruments.  "  Fiddle "  is  of  vast  anti- 
quity ;  but  pear-shaped,  till  Italy  invented  the  four  corn- 
ers, on  which  sound  as  well  as  beauty  depends. 

The  Order  of  Invention.  —  Etymology  decides  with 
unerring  voice  that  the  violoncello  was  invented  after 
the  violono  or  double-bass,  and  connoisseurship  proves 
by  two  distinct  methods  that  it  was  invented  after  the 
violin.  1st  the  critical  method :  it  is  called  after  the 
violon,  yet  is  made  on  the  plan  of  the  violin,  with  arched 
back  and  long  inner  bought.  2nd,  the  historical  method  : 
a  violoncello  made  by  the  inventors  of  the  violin  is  in- 
comparably rare,  and  this  instrument  is  disproportion- 
ately rare  even  up  to  the  year  1610.  Violino  being  a 
derivative  of  viola  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  violin 
followed  the  tenor ;  but  this  taken  alone  is  dangerous ; 
for  viola  is  not  only  a  specific  term  for  the  tenor,  but  a 
generic  name  that  was  in  Italy  a  hundred  years  before 
a  tenor  with  four  strings  was  made.  To  go  then  to  con- 
noisseurship —  I  find  that  I  have  fallen  in  with  as  many 
tenors  as  violins  by  Gasparo  da  Salo,  who  worked  from 
about  1555  to  1600,  and  not  quite  so  many  by  Gio  Paolo 


48  READIANA. 

Maggini,  who  began  a  few  years  later.  The  violin  being 
the  king  of  all  these  instruments,  I  think  there  would 
not  be  so  many  tenors  made  as  violins,  when  once  the 
violin  had  been  invented.  Moreover,  between  the  above 
dates  came  Corelli,  a  composer  and  violinist.  He  would 
naturally  create  a  crop  of  violins.  Finding  the  tenors 
and  violins  of  Gasparo  da  Salo  about  equal  in  number,  I 
am  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  tenor  had  an  unfair 
start  —  in  other  words,  was  invented  first.  1  add  to  this 
that  true  four-stringed  tenors  by  Gasparo  da  Salo  exist, 
though  very  rare,  made  with  only  two  corners,  which  is 
a  more  primitive  form  than  any  violin  by  the  same  maker 
appears  in.  For  this  and  some  other  reasons,  I  have 
little  doubt  the  viola  preceded  the  violin  by  a  very  few 
years.  What  puzzles  me  more  is  to  time  the  violon,  or, 
as  we  childishly  call  it  (after  its  known  descendant), 
the  double-bass.  If  I  was  so  presumptuous  as  to  trust 
to  my  eye  alone,  I  should  say  it  was  the  first  of  them  all. 
It  is  an  instrument  which  does  not  seem  to  mix  with 
these  four-stringed  upstarts,  but  to  belong  to  a  much 
older  family  —  viz.  the  viole  d'amore,  da  gamba,  &c.  In 
the  first  place  it  has  not  four  strings ;  secondly,  it  has 
not  an  arched  back,  but  a  flat  back,  with  a  peculiar 
shoulder,  copied  from  the  viola  da  gamba;  thirdly,  the 
space  between  the  upper  and  lower  corners  in  the  early 
specimens  is  ludicrously  short.  And  it  is  hard  to  believe 
that  an  eye,  which  had  observed  the  graceful  proportions 
of  the  tenor  and  violin,  could  be  guilty  of  such  a  wretched 
little  inner-bought  as  you  find  in  a  double-bass  of  Brescia. 
Per  contra,  it  must  be  admitted,  first,  that  the  sound-hole 
of  a  Brescian  double-bass  seems  copied  from  the  four- 
stringed  tribe,  and  not  at  all  from  the  elder  family; 
secondly,  that  the  violin  and  tenor  are  instruments  of 


CREMONA   FIDDLES.  49 

melody  or  harmony,  but  the  violon  of  harmony  only. 
This  is  dead  against  its  being  invented  until  after  the 
instruments  to  which  it  is  subsidiary.  Man  invents  only 
to  supply  a  want.  Thus,  then,  it  is.  First,  the  large 
tenor,  played  between  the  knees ;  then  the  violin,  played 
under  the  chin;  then  (if  not  the  first  of  them  all)  the 
small  double-bass :  then,  years  after  the  violin,  the  vio- 
loncello ;  then  the  full-sized  double-bass ;  then,  longo 
intervallo,  the  small  tenor,  played  under  the  chin. 

However,  I  do  not  advance  these  con(;lusions  as  infal- 
lible. The  highest  evidence  on  some  of  these  points 
must  surely  lie  in  manuscript  music  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  much  of  Avhich  is  preserved  in  the  libraries  of 
Italy ;  and,  if  Mr.  Hatton  or  any  musician  learned  in  the 
history  of  his  art  will  tell  me  for  what  stringed  instru- 
ments the  immediate  predecessors  of  Corelli,  and  Corelli 
at  his  commencement,  marked  their  compositions,  I  shall 
receive  the  communication  with  gratitude  and  respect. 
I  need  hardly  say  that  nothing  but  the  MS.  or  the  ed'itio 
jprincejis  is  evidence  in  so  nice  a  matter. 

The  first  known  maker  of  the  true  tenor,  and  probably 
of  the  violin,  was  Gasparo  da  Salo.  The  student  who 
has  read  the  valuable  work  put  forth  by  Monsieur  Fetis 
and  Monsieur  Vuillaume  might  imagine  that  I  am  con- 
tradicting them  here;  for  they  quote  as  "luthiers"  — 
antecedent  to  Gasparo  da  Salo  —  Kerlino,  Duiffoprugcar, 
Linarolli,  Dardelli,  and  others.  These  men,  I  grant  you, 
worked  long  before  Gasparo  da  Salo ;  I  even  offer  an  in- 
dependent proof,  and  a  very  simple  one.  I  find  that 
their  genuine  tickets  are  in  Gothic  letters,  whereas  those 
of  Gasparo  da  Salo  are  in  roman  type ;  but  I  know  the 
works  of  those  makers,  and  they  did  not  make  tenors  nor 
violins.     They  made  instruments  of   the  older  family, 


50  READTANA. 

viole  (Vamore,  da  gamba,  &c.  Their  true  tickets  are  all 
black-letter  tickets,  and  not  one  such  ticket  exists  in  any 
old  violin,  nor  in  a  single  genuine  tenor.  The  fact  is 
that  the  tenor  is  an  instrument  of  unfixed  dimensions, 
and  can  easily  be  reconstructed  out  of  different  viole 
made  in  an  earlier  age.  There  are  innumerable  examples 
of  this,  and  happily  the  Exhibition  furnishes  two.  There 
are  two  curious  instruments  strung  as  tenors,  Nos.  114 
and  134  in  the  catalogue :  one  is  given  to  Joan  Carlino, 
and  the  year  1452  ;  the  other  to  Linaro,  and  1563.  These 
two  instruments  were  both  made  by  one  man,  Ventura 
Linarolli,  of  Venice  (misspelt  by  M.  Fetis,  Venturi), 
about  the  year  1520.  Look  at  the  enormous  breadth  be- 
tween the  sound  holes ;  that  shows  they  were  made  to 
carry  six  or  seven  strings.  Now  look  at  the  scrolls ; 
both  of  them  new,  because  the  old  scrolls  were  primitive 
things  with  six  or  seven  screws ;  it  is  only  by  such  re- 
construction that  a  tenor  or  violin  can  be  set  up  as  ante- 
rior to  Gasparo  da  Salo.  No.  114  is,  however,  a  real 
gem  of  antiquity ;  the  wood  and  varnish  exquisite,  and 
far  fresher  than  nine  Amatis  out  of  ten.  It  is  well 
worthy  the  special  attention  of  collectors.  It  was  played 
upon  the  knee. 

There  are  in  the  collection  two  instruments  by  Gas- 
paro da  Salo  worth  especial  notice;  a  tenor,  No.  142, 
and  a  violono,  or  primitive  double-bass,  199.  The  tenor 
is  one  of  his  later  make,  yet  has  a  grand  primitive  char- 
acter. Observe,  in  particular,  the  scroll  all  round,  and 
the  amazing  inequality  between  the  bass  sound-hole  and 
the  purfling  of  the  belly ;  this  instrument  and  the  grand 
tenor  assigned  to  Maggini,  and  lent  by  Madame  Kisler, 
offer  a  point  of  connoisseurship  worthy  the  student's  at- 
tention.    The  back  of  each  instrument  looks  full  a  cen- 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  51 

tury  younger  than  the  belly.  But  this  is  illusory.  The 
simple  fact  is  that  the  tenors  of  that  day,  when  not  in 
use,  were  not  nursed  in  cases,  but  hung  up  on  a  nail, 
belly  outwards.  Thus  the  belly  caught  the  sun  of  Italy, 
the  dust,  &c.,  and  its  varnish  was  often  withered  to  a 
mere  resin,  while  the  back  and  sides  escaped.  This  is 
the  key  to  that  little  mystery.  Observe  the  scroll  of  the 
violono  199  !  How  primitive  it  is  all  round ;  at  the  back 
a  flat  cut,  in  front  a  single  flute,  copied  from  its  true 
parent,  the  viola  da  gamba.  This  scroll,  taken  in  con- 
junction with  the  size  and  other  points,  marks  an  instru- 
ment considerably  anterior  to  Xo.  200.  As  to  the  other 
double-basses  in  the  same  case,  they  are  assigned  by  their 
owners  to  Gasparo  da  Salo,  because  they  are  double-pur- 
fled  and  look  older  than  Cremonese  violins ;  but  these 
indicia  are  valueless ;  all  Cremona  and  Milan  double- 
purfled  the  violon  as  often  as  not;  and  the  constant 
exposure  to  air  and  dust  gives  the  violono  a  colour  of 
antiquity  that  is  delusive.  In  no  one  part  of  the  busi- 
ness is  knowledge  of  work  so  necessary.  The  violoni 
201-2-3,  are  all  fine  Italian  instruments.  The  small  vio- 
lon, 202,  that  stands  by  the  side  of  the  Gasparo  da  Salo, 
199,  has  the  purfling  of  Andreas  Amatus,  the  early  sound- 
hole  of  Andreas  Amatus  ;  the  exquisite  corners  and  finish 
of  Andreas  Amatus ;  the  finely  cut  scroll  of  Andreas 
Amatus ;  at  the  back  of  scroll  the  neat  shell  and  square 
shoulder  of  Andreas  Amatus ;  and  the  back,  instead  of 
being  made  of  any  rubbish  that  came  to  hand,  after  the 
manner  of  Brescia,  is  of  true  fiddle  wood,  cut  the  bastard 
way  of  the  grain,  which  was  the  taste  of  the  Amati ;  and, 
finally,  it  is  varnished  with  the  best  varnish  of  the  Amati. 
Under  these  circumstances,  I  hope  I  shall  not  offend  the 
owner  by  refusing  it  the  inferior  name  of  Gasparo  da 


52  READIANA. 

Salo.     It  is  one  of  the  brightest  gems  of  the  collection, 
and  not  easily  to  be  matched  in  Europe. 


SECOND   LETTER. 

August  2ith,  1872. 

Gio  Paolo  Maggini  is  represented  at  the  Kensington 
Museum  by  an  excellent  violin,  No.  Ill,  very  fine  in 
workmanship  and  varnish,  but  as  to  the  model  a  trifle 
too  much  hollowed  at  the  sides,  and  so  a  little  inferior 
to  some  of  his  violins,  and  to  the  violin  No.  70,  the 
model  of  which,  like  many  of  the  Brescian  school,  is 
simple  and  perfect.  (Model  as  applied  to  a  violin,  is  a 
term  quite  distinct  from  outline.)  In  No.  70  both  belly 
and  back  are  modelled  with  the  simplicity  of  genius,  by 
even  gradation,  from  the  centre,  which  is  the  higliest 
part,  down  to  all  the  borders  of  the  instrument.  The 
world  has  come  back  to  this  primitive  model  after  try- 
ing a  score,  and  prejudice  gives  the  whole  credit  to 
Joseph  Guarnerius,  of  Cremona.  As  to  the  date  of  No. 
70,  the  neatness  and,  above  all,  the'  slimness  of  the 
sound-hole,  mark,  I  think,  a  period  slightly  posterior  to 
Gasparo  da  Salo.  This  slim  sound-hole  is  an  advance, 
not  a  retrogression.  The  gaping  sound-holes  of  Gasparo 
da  Salo  and  Maggini  were  their  one  great  error.  They 
were  not  only  ugly ;  they  lessened  the  ring  by  allowing 
the  vibration  to  escape  from  the  cavity  too  quickly.  No. 
GO,  assigned  to  Duiffoprugcar  and  a  fabulous  antiquity, 
was  •  made  by  some  'prentice  hand  in  the  seventeenth 
century ;  but  No.  70  would  adorn  any  collection,  being 
an  old  masterpiece  of  Brescia  or  Bologna. 

The  School   of   Cremona. —  Andreas   Amatus  was 


CREMONA   FIDDLES.  ^^ 


more  than  thirty  years  old,  and  an  accomplished  maker 
of    the  older  viole,  when   the  violin  was  invented   m 
Brescia  or  Bologna.     He  does  not  appear  to  have  trou- 
bled his  head  with  the  new  instrument  for  some  years; 
one  proof  more  that  new  they  were.     They  would  not 
at  first  materially  influence  his  established  trade;  the 
old  and  new  family  ran  side  by  side.     Indeed  it  took 
the  violin  tribe  two  centuries  to  drive  out  the  viola  da 
gamba.      However,  in  due  course,  Andreas  Amatus  set 
to  work  on  violins.      He   learned   from   the  Brescian 
school  the  only  things  they  could  teach  a  workman  so 
superior  — viz.,  the  four   corners   and    the   sound-hole. 
This  Brescian  sound-hole  stuck  to  him  all  his  days  ;  but 
what  he  had  learned  in  his  original  art  remained  by  him 
too        The  collection  contains  three  specimens  of   his 
handiwork:    Violin  202,  Mrs.  Jay's  violin -with   the 
modern   head  -  erroneously  assigned   to  Antonius  and 
Hieronymus;  and  violoncello  No.  183.     There  are  also 
traces  of  his  hand  in  the  fine  tenor  139.     In  the  three 
instruments  just  named  the  purfling  is  composed  m  ]ust 
proportions,  so  that  the  white  comes  out  with  vigour; 
it  is  then  inlaid  with  great  neatness.     The  violoncello  is 
the  gem.     Its  outline  is  grace  itself :  the  four  exquisite 
curves  coincide  in  one  pure  and  serpentme  design.     1  his 
bass  is  a  violin  soufEe ;  were  it  sho^vn  at  a  distance  it 
would  take  the  appearance  of  a  most  elegant  violm ;  the 
best  basses  of   Stradiuarius  alone  will  stand   this  test 
(Apply  it  to  the  Venetian  masterpiece  m  the  same  case.) 
The  scroll   is  perfect   in   design  and  chiselled  as  by  a 
sculptor;  the  purfiing  is  quite  as  fine  as  Stradiuarius: 
it  is  violin  purfling,  yet  this  seems  to  add  elegance  with- 
out meanness.     It  is  a  masterpiece  of  Cremona,  all  but 
the  hideous  sound-hole,  that  alone  connects  this  master 
with  the  Brescian  school. 


54  EEADIANA. 

His  sons  Antonius  and  Hieronymus  soon  cured  them- 
selves of  that  grotesque  sound-hole,  and  created  a  great 
school.  They  chose  better  wood  and  made  richer  var- 
nish, and  did  many  beautiful  things.  Nevertheless, 
they  infected  Italian  fiddle-making  with  a  fatal  error. 
They  were  the  first  Scoopeiis.  Having  improved  on 
Brescia  in  outline  and  details,  they  assumed  too  hastily 
that  they  could  improve  on  her  model.  So  they  scooped 
out  the  wood  about  the  sound-holes  and  all  round,  weak- 
ening the  connection  of  the  centre  with  the  sides  of  the 
belly,  and  checking  the  fullness  of  the  vibration.  The 
German  school  carried  this  vice  much  further,  but  the 
Amati  went  too  far,  and  inoculated  a  lumdred  fine  mak- 
ers with  a  wrong  idea.  It  took  Stradiuarius  himself 
fifty-six  3^ears  to  get  entirely  clear  of  it. 

The  brothers  Amati  are  represented  in  this  collection, 
first  by  several  tenors  that  once  were  noble  things,  but 
have  been  cut  on  the  old  system,  which  was  downright 
wicked.  It  is  cutting  in  the  statutory  sense,  viz.,  cut- 
ting and  maiming.  These  ruthless  men  just  sawed  a 
crescent  off  the  top,  and  another  off  the  bottom,  and  the 
result  is  a  thing  with  the  inner  bought  of  a  giant  and 
the  upper  and  lower  bought  of  a  dwarf.  If  one  of  these 
noble  instruments  survives  in  England  uncut,  I  implore 
the  owner  to  spare  it;  to  play  on  a  £5  tenor,  with  the 
Amati  set  before  him  to  look  at  while  he  plays.  Luckily 
the  scrolls  remain  to  us ;  and  let  me  draw  attention  to 
the  scroll  of  136.  Look  at  the  back  of  this  scroll,  and 
see  how  it  is  chiselled  —  the  centre  line  in  relief,  how 
sharp,  distinct,  and  fine ;  this  line  is  obtained  by  chisel- 
ling out  the  wood  on  both  sides  with  a  single  tool,  which 
fiddle-makers  call  a  gauge^  and  there  is  nothing  but  the 
eye  to  guide  the  hand. 


CEEMONA    FIDDLES.  6b 

There  are  two  excellent  violins  of  this  make  in  the 
collection  —  Mrs.  Jay's,  and  the  violin  of  Mr.  C.  J. 
Read,  No.  75.  This  latter  is  the  large  pattern  of  those 
makers,  and  is  more  elegant  than  what  is  technically 
called  the  grand  Amati,  but  not  so  striking. '  To  appre- 
ciate the  merit  and  the  defect  of  this  instrument,  com- 
pare it  candidly  with  the  noble  Stradiuarius  Amatise 
that  hangs  by  its  side,  numbered  82.  Take  a  back  view 
first.  In  outline  they  are  much  alike.  In  the  details 
of  work  the  Amati  is  rather  superior ;  the  border  of  the 
Stradiuarius  is  more  exquisite ;  but  the  Amati  scroll  is 
better  pointed  and  gauged  more  cleanly,  the  purfling 
better  composed  for  effect,  and  the  way  that  purfling  is 
let  in,  especially  at  the  corners,  is  incomparable.  On 
the  front  view  you  find  the  Amati  violin  is  scooped  out 
here  and  there,  a  defect  the  Stadiuarius  has  avoided.  I 
prefer  the  Stradiuarius  sound-hole  per  se;  but,  if  you 
look  at  the  curves  of  these  two  violins,  you  will  observe 
that  the  Amati  sound-holes  are  in  strict  harmony  with 
the  curves  ;  and  the  whole  thing  the  product  of  one  orig- 
inal mind  that  saw  its  way. 

Nicholas  Amatus,  the  son  of  Hieronymus,  owes  his 
distinct  reputation  to  a  single  form  called  by  connois- 
seurs the  Grand  Amati.  This  is  a  very  large  violin, 
with  extravagantly  long  corners,  extremely  fine  in  all 
the  details.  I  do  not  think  it  was  much  admired  at  the 
time.  At  all  events,  he  made  but  few,  and  his  copyists, 
with  the  exception  of  Francesco  Rugger,  rarely  selected 
that  form  to  imitate.  But  nowadays  these  violins  are 
almost  worshipped,  and,  as  the  collection  is  incomplete 
without  one,  I  hope  some  gentleman  will  kindly  send 
one  in  before  it  closes.  There  is  also  wanting  an  Amati 
bass,  and,  if  the  purchaser  of  Mr.  Gillott's  should  feel 


56  READIANA. 

disposed  to  supply  that  gap,  it  would  be  a  very  kind  act. 
The  Rugger  family  is  numerous ;  it  is  repi'esented  by 
one  violin  (147). 

Leaving  the  makers  of  the  Guarnerius  family  —  five 
in  number  —  till  the  last,  we  come  to  Antonius  Stradiu- 
arius.  This  unrivalled  workman  and  extraordinary  man 
was  born  in  1644,  and  died  in  December,  1737.  There 
is  nothing  signed  with  his  name  before  1667.  He  was 
learning  his  business  thoroughly.  From  that  date  till 
1736  he  worked  incessantly,  often  varying  his  style,  and 
always  improving,  till  he  came  to  his  climax,  represented 
in  this  collection  by  the  violins  83  and  87,  and  the 
violoncello  188. 

He  began  with  a  rather  small,  short-cornered  violin, 
which  is  an  imitation  of  the  small  Amati,  but  very 
superior.  He  went  on,  and  imitated  the  large  Amati, 
but  softened  down  the  corners.  For  thirty  years  — 
from  1672  to  1703  —  he  poured  forth  violins  of  this  pat- 
tern ;  there  are  several  in  this  collection,  and  one  tenor, 
139,  with  a  plain  back  but  a  beautiful  belly,  and  in  ad- 
mirable preservatian.  But,  while  he  was  making  these 
Amatise  violins  by  the  hundred,  he  had  nevertheless 
his  fits  of  originality,  and  put  forth  an  anomaly  every 
now  and  then;  sometimes  it  was  a  very  long,  narrow 
violin  with  elegant  drooping  corners,  and,  sometimes  in 
a  happier  mood,  he  combined  these  drooping  corners 
with  a  far  more  beautiful  model.  Of  these  varieties  No. 
86  gives  just  an  indication ;  no  more.  These  lucid  in- 
tervals never  lasted  long,  he  was  back  to  his  Amatis 
next  week.  Yet  they  left,  I  think,  the  germs  that  broke 
out  so  marvellously  in  the  next  century.  About  the  year 
1703  it  seems  to  have  struck  him  like  a  revelation  that 
he  was  a  greater  man  than  his  master.     He  dropped  him 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  57 

once  and  forever,  and  for  nearly  twenty  years  poured 
forth  with  unceasing  fertility  some  admirable  works,  of 
which  you  have  three  fine  examples,  under  average 
wear,  hard  wear,  and  no  wear  —  90,  92,  91.  Please 
look  at  the  three  violins  in  this  order  to  realize  what  I 
have  indicated  before  —  that  time  is  no  sure  measure  of 
events  in  this  business.  ^STevertheless,  in  all  these  ex- 
quisite productions  there  was  one  thing  which  he  thought 
capable  of  improvement  —  there  was  a  slight  residue  of 
the  scoop,  especially  at  the  lower  part  of  the  back.  He 
began  to  alter  that  about  1720,  and  by  degrees  went  to 
his  grand  model,  in  which  there  is  no  scoop  at  all. 
This,  his  grandest  epoch,  is  represented  by  the  Duke  of 
Cambridge's  violin,  Mr.  Arkwright's,  and  M.  le  Comte's  : 
this  last  has  the  additional  characteristic  of  the  stiffer 
sound-hole  and  the  wood  left  broad  in  the  wing  of  the 
sound-hole.  One  feature  more  of  this  his  greatest  epoch  : 
the  purfling  instead  of  exactly  following  the  corner,  is 
pointed  across  it  in  a  manner  completely  original.  He 
made  these  grand  violins  and  a  bass  or  two  till  about 
1729  ;  after  that  the  grand  model  was  confined  to  his 
violins,  and  the  details  become  inferior  in  finish.  Of 
this  there  is  an  example  in  No.  84,  a  noble  but  rough 
violin,  in  parts  of  which  certain  connoisseurs  would  see, 
or  fancy  they  saw,  the  hand  of  Bergonzi,  or  of  Francesco 
or  Homobuono  Stradiuarius.  These  workmen  undoubt- 
edly lived,  and  survived  their  father  a  few  years.  They 
seem  to  have  worked  up  his  refuse  wood  after  his  death  ; 
but  their  interference  with  his  work  while  alive  has 
been  exaggerated  by  French  connoisseurs.  To  put  a 
difficult  question  briefly  :  their  theory  fails  to  observe 
the  style  Stradiuarius  was  coming  to  even  in  1727  ;  it  also 
ignores   the  age   of   Stradiuarius  during   this   his   last 


58  READIANA. 

epoch  of  work,  and  says  that  there  exists  no  old  man's 
work  by  Stradiuarius  himself;  all  this  old  man's  work  is 
done  by  younger  men.  However,  generalities  are  use- 
less on  a  subject  so  difficult  and  disputed.  The  only 
way  is  to  get  the  doubtful  violins  or  basses  and  analyze 
them,  and  should  the  Museum  give  a  permanent  corner 
to  Cremonese  instruments,  this  Francesco  and  Homo- 
buono  question  will  be  sifted  with  examples.  The 
minutiae  of  work  in  Stradiuarius  are  numerous  and  ad- 
mirable, but  they  would  occupy  too  much  space  and  are 
too  well  known  to  need  discourse.  His  varnish  I  shall 
treat  along  with  the  others.  A  few  words  about  the 
man.  He  was  a  tall,  thin  veteran,  always  to  be  seen 
with  a  white  leathern  apron  and  a  nightcap  on  his  head ; 
in  winter  it  was  white  wool,  and  in  summer  white  cot- 
ton. His  indomitable  industry  had  amassed  some  for- 
tune, and  as  "  rich  as  Stradiuarius "  was  a  by-word  at 
Cremona,  but  probably  more  current  among  the  fiddle- 
makers  than  the  bankers  and  merchants.  His  price 
towards  the  latter  part  of  his  career  was  four  louis  d'or 
for  a  violin ;  his  best  customers  Itah*  and  Spain.  Mr. 
Foster  assures  us  on  unimpeachable  authority  that  he 
once  sent  some  instruments  to  England  on  sale  or 
return,  and  that  they  were  taken  back,  the  merchant  be- 
ing unable  to  get  £5  for  a  violoncello.  What  ho! 
Hang  all  the  Englishmen  of  that  day  who  are  alive  to 
meet  their  deserts  !  However,  the  true  point  of  the  in- 
cident is,  I  think,  missed  by  the  narrators.  The  fact  is 
that  then,  as  now,  England  wanted  old  Cremonas,  not 
new  ones.  That  the  Amati  had  a  familiar  reputation 
here  and  probably  a  ready  market  can  be  proved  rather 
prettily  out  of  the  mouth  of  Dean  Swift.  A  violin  was 
left  on  a  chair.     A  lady  swept  by.     Her  mantua  caught 


CEEMOXA   FIDDLES.  59 

it  and  knocked  it  down  and  broke  it.  Then  the  witty 
Dean  applied  a  line  in  Virgil's  Eclogue  — 

"  Mantua  vse  miseree  nimium  vicina  Cremonse." 

This  was  certainly  said  during  the  lifetime  of  Stradiu- 
arius,  and  proves  that  the  Cremona  fiddle  had  a  fixed 
reputation ;  it  also  proves  that  an  Irishman  could  make 
a  better  Latin  pun  than  any  old  Roman  has  left  behind 
him.  Since  I  have  diverged  into  what  some  brute  calls 
anec-dotage  let  me  conclude  this  article  with  one  that  is 
at  all  events  to  the  point,  since  it  tells  the  eventful 
history  of  an  instrument  now  on  show. 

The  Romance  of  Fiddle-Dealing.  —  Nearly  fifty 
years  ago  a  gaunt  Italian  called  Luigi  Tarisio  arrived  in 
Paris  one  day  with  a  lot  of  old  Italian  instruments  by 
makers  whose  names  were  hardly  known.  The  princi- 
pal dealers,  whose  minds  were  narrowed,  as  often  is  the 
case,  to  three  or  four  makers,  would  not  deal  with  him. 
M.  Georges  Chanot,  younger  and  more  intelligent,  pur- 
chased largely,  and  encouraged  him  to  return.  He  came 
back  next  year  with  a  better  lot ;  and  yearly  increasing 
his  funds,  he  flew  at  the  highest  game ;  and  in  the 
course  of  thirty  years  imported  nearly  all  the  finest 
specimens  of  Stradiuarius  and  Guarnerius  France  pos- 
sesses. He  was  the  greatest  connoisseur  that  ever  lived 
or  ever  can  live,  because  he  had  the  true  mind  of  a  con- 
noisseur and  vast  opportunities.  He  ransacked  Italy 
before  the  tickets  in  the  violins  of  Francesco  Stradiu- 
arius, Alexander  Gagliano,  Lorenzo  Guadagnini,  Gio- 
fredus  Cappa,  Gobetti,  Morgilato  Morella,  Antonio 
Mariani,  Santo  Maggini,  and  Mateo  Benti  of  Brescia, 
Michel    Angelo   Bergonzi,  Montagnana,  Thomas   Bales- 


60  READ  IAN  A. 

trieii,  Storioni,  Vicenzo  Rugger,  the  Testori,  Petrus 
Guaruerius  of  Venice,  and  full  fifty  more,  had  been 
tampered  with,  that  every  brilliant  masterpiece  might 
be  assigned  to  some  popular  name.  To  his  immortal 
credit,  he  fought  against  this  mania,  and  his  motto  was 
"  A  tout  seigneur  tout  honneur."  The  man's  whole 
soul  was  in  fiddles.  He  was  a  great  dealer  but  a 
greater  amateur.  He  had  gems  by  him  no  money  would 
buy  from  him.  No.  91  was  one  of  them.  But  for  his 
death  you  would  have  never  cast  eyes  on  it.  He  has 
often  talked  to  me  of  it ;  but  he  would  never  let  me  see 
it,  for  fear  I  should  tempt  him. 

Well,  one  day  Georges  Chanot,  Senior,  who  is  per- 
haps the  best  judge  of  violins  left,  now  Tarisio  is  gone, 
made  an  excursion  to  Spain,  to  see  if  he  could  find  any- 
thing there.  He  found  mighty  little.  But,  coming  to 
the  shop  of  a  fiddle-maker,  one  Ortega,  he  saw  the  belly 
of  an  old  bass  hung  up  with  other  things.  Chanot 
rubbed  his  eyes,  and  asked  himself,  was  he  dreaming  ? 
the  belly  of  a  Stradiuarius  bass  roasting  in  a  shop-win- 
dow !  He  went  in,  and  very  soon  bought  it  for  about 
forty  francs.  He  then  ascertained  that  the  bass  belonged 
to  a  lady  of  rank.  The  belly  was  full  of  cracks ;  so, 
not  to  make  two  bites  of  a  cherry,  Ortega  had  made  a  nice 
new  one.  Chanot  carried  this  precious  fragment  home 
and  hung  it  up  in  his  shop,  but  not  in  the  window,  for 
he  is  too  good  a  judge  not  to  know  the  sun  will  take  all 
the  colour  out  of  that  maker's  varnish.  Tarisio  came 
in  from  Italy,  and  his  eye  lighted  instantly  on  the 
Stradiuarius  belly.  He  pestered  Chanot  till  the  latter 
sold  it  him  for  a  thousand  francs  and  told  him  where 
the  rest  was.  Torisio  no  sooner  knew  this  than  he  flew 
to  Madrid.     He  learned    from  Ortega  where  the  lady 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  61 

lived,  and  called  on  her  to  see  it.  ^'  Sir,"'  says  the  lady, 
"  it  is  at  your  disposition."  That  does  not  mean  much 
in  Spain.  When  he  offered  to  buy  it,  she  coquetted 
with  hinl,  said  it  had  been  long  in  her  family  ;  money 
could  not  replace  a  thing  of  that  kind,  and  in  short,  she 
put  on  the  screw,  as  she  thought,  and  sold  it  him  for 
about  four  thousand  francs.  What  he  did  with  the 
Ortega  belly  is  not  known  —  perhaps  sold  it  to  some 
person  in  the  tooth-pick  trade.  He  sailed  exultant  for 
Paris  with  the  Spanish  bass  in  a  case.  He  never  let  it 
out  of  his  sight.  The  pair  were  caught  by  a  storm  in 
the  Bay  of  Biscay.  The  ship  rolled ;  Tarisio  clasped 
his  bass  tight  and  trembled.  It  was  a  terrible  gale,  and 
for  one  whole  day  they  were  in  real  danger.  Tarisio 
spoke  of  it  to  me  with  a  shudder.  I  will  give  you  his 
real  words,  for  they  struck  me  at  the  time,  and  I  have 
often  thought  of  them  since  — 

"Ah,  my  poor  Mr.  Reade,  the  bass  of  Spaix 
was  all  but  lost." 

Was  not  this  a  true  connoisseur  ?  a  genuine  enthusiast  ? 
Observe !  there  was  also  an  ephemeral  insect  called 
Luigi  Tarisio,  who  would  have  gone  down  with  the 
bass  :  but  that  made  no  impression  on  his  mind.  De 
ininhnus  non  curat  Ludovicus. 

He  got  it  safe  to  Paris.  A  certain  high  priest  in 
these  mysteries,  called  Vuillaume,  with  the  help  of  a 
sacred  vessel  called  the  glue-pot,  soon  re-wedded  the 
back  and  the  sides  to  the  belly,  and  the  bass  being  now 
just  what  it  was  when  the  ruffian  Ortega  put  his  finger 
in  the  pie,  was  sold  for  20,000  fr.  (£800). 

I  saw  the  Spanish  bass  in  Paris  twenty-two  years  ago, 
and  you  can  see  it  any  day  this  month  you  like,  for  it  is 
the   identical  violoncello  now  on   show   at   Kensington, 


62  READIANA. 

uiimbered  188.  Who  would  divine  its  separate  adven- 
tures, to  see  it  all  reposing  so  calm  and  uniform  in  that 
case  —  "  Fost  tot  naufracjia  tutusP 

THIRD  LETTER. 

August  21th,  1872. 

"  The  Spanish  bass  "  is  of  the  grand  pattern  and  ex- 
quisitely made  :  the  sound-hole,  rather  shorter  and  stiffer 
than  in  Stradiuarius's  preceding  epoch,  seems  stamped 
out  of  the  wood  with  a  blow,  so  swiftly  and  surely  is  it 
cut.  The  purfling  is  perfection.  Look  at  the  section 
of  it  in  the  upper  bought  of  the  back.  The  scroll  ex- 
tremely elegant.  The  belly  is  a  beautiful  piece  of  wood. 
The  back  is  of  excellent  quality,  but  mean  in  the  figure. 
The  sides  are  cut  the  wrong  way  of  the  grain ;  a  rare 
mistake  in  this  master.  The  varnish  sweet,  clear,  orange- 
coloured,  and  full  of  fire.  Oh,  if  this  varnish  could  but 
be  laid  on  the  wood  of  the  Sanctus  Seraphin  bass !  The 
belly  is  full  of  cracks,  and  those  cracks  have  not  been 
mended  without  several  lines  of  modern  varnish  clearly 
visible  to  the  practised  eye. 

Some  years  ago  there  was  a  Stradiuarius  bass  in  Ire- 
land. I  believe  it  was  presented  by  General  Oliver  to 
Signor  Piatti.  I  never  saw  it ;  but  some  people  tell  me 
that  in  wood  and  varnish  it  surpasses  the  Spanish  bass. 
Should  these  lines  meet  Signor  Piatti's  eye,  I  will  only 
say  that,  if  he  would  allow  it  to  be  placed  in  the  case 
for  a  single  week,  it  would  be  a  great  boon  to  the  admi- 
rers of  these  rare  and  noble  pieces,  and  very  instructive. 
By  the  side  of  the  Spanish  bass  stands  another,  inferior 
to  it  in  model  and  general  work,  superior  to  it  in  preser- 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  63 

vation,  Xo.  187.  The  unhappy  parts  are  the  wood  of  the 
sides  and  the  scroll.  Bad  wood  kills  good  varnish. 
The  scroll  is  superb  in  workmanship ;  it  is  more  finely 
cut  at  the  back  part  than  the  scroll  of  the  Spanish  bass  ; 
but  it  is  cut  out  of  a  pear  tree,  and  that  abominable 
wood  gets  uglier  if  possible  under  varnish,  and  lessens 
the  effect  even  of  first-class  work.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  back  and  belly,  where  the  varnish  gets  fair  play,  are 
beautiful.  The  belly  is  incomparable.  Here  is  the  very 
finest  ruby  varnish  of  Stradiuarius,  as  pure  as  the  day  it 
was  laid  on.  The  back  was  the  same  colour  originally, 
but  has  been  reduced  in  tint  by  the  friction  this  part 
of  a  bass  encounters  when  played  on.  The  varnish  on 
the  back  is  chipped  all  over  in  a  manner  most  picturesque 
to  the  cultivated  eye ;  only  It  must  go  no  farther.  I  find 
on  examination  that  these  chips  have  all  been  done  a 
good  many  years  ago,  and  I  can  give  you  a  fair,  though 
of  course  not  an  exact,  idea  of  the  process.  Methinks  I 
see  an  old  gentleman  seated  sipping  his  last  glass  of  port 
in  the  dining-room  over  a  shining  table,  whence  the 
cloth  was  removed  for  dessert.  He  wears  a  little  powder 
still,  though  no  longer  the  fashion;  he  has  no  shirt- 
collar,  but  a  roll  of  soft  and  snowy  cambric  round  his 
neck,  a  plain  gold  pin,  and  a  frilled  bosom.  He  has  a 
white  waistcoat  —  snow-white  like  his  linen :  he  washes 
at  home  —  and  a  blue  coat  with  gilt  buttons.  Item,  a 
large  fob  or  watch-pocket,  whence  bulges  a  golden  tur- 
nip, and  puts  forth  seed,  to  wit  a  bunch  of  seals  and 
watch-keys,  with  perhaps  a  gold  pencil-case.  One  of 
these  seals  is  larger  than  the  others :  the  family  arms 
are  engraved  on  it,  and  only  important  letters  are  signed 
with  it.  He  rises  and  goes  to  the  drawing-room.  The 
piano  is  opened ;  a  servant  brings  the  Stradiuarius  bass 


G4  READIANA. 

from  the  study ;  the  old  gentleman  takes  it  and  tunes  it, 
and,  not  to  be  bothered  with  his  lapels,  buttons  his 
coat,  and  plays  his  part  in  a  quartett  of  Haydn  or  a  sym- 
phony of  Corelli,  and  smiles  as  he  plays,  because  he 
really  loves  music,  and  is  not  overweighted.  Your  mod- 
ern amateur,  with  a  face  of  justifiable  agony,  ploughs 
the  hill  of  Beethoven  and  harrows  the  soul  of  Reade. 
Nevertheless,  my  smiling  senior  is  all  the  time  bringing 
the  finest  and  most  delicate  varnish  of  Stradiuarius  into 
a  series  of  gentle  collisions  with  the  following  objects : 
—  First,  the  gold  pin ;  then  the  two  rows  of  brass  but- 
tons ;  and  last,  not  least,  the  male  chatelaine  of  the 
period.  There  is  an  oval  chip  just  off  the  centre  of 
this  bass  ;  I  give  the  armorial  seal  especial  credit  for 
that :  "  a  tout  seigneur  tout  honneur." 

Take  another  specimen  of  eccentric  wear  :  the  red 
Stradiuarius  kit  88.  The  enormous  oval  wear  has  been 
done  thus  :  —  It  has  belonged  to  a  dancing-master,  and  he 
has  clapped  it  under  his  arm  fifty  times  a  day  to  show 
his  pupils  the  steps. 

The  Guarnerius  family  consisted  of  Andreas,  his  two 
sons  Petrus  and  Joseph,  his  grandson  Petrus  Guarnerius 
of  Venice  and  Joseph  Guarnerius,  the  greatest  of  the 
family,  whom  Mons.  Fetis  considers  identical. with  Giu- 
seppe Antonio,  born  in  1683.  There  are,  however,  great 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  this  theory,  which  I  will  re- 
serve for  my  miscellaneous  remarks. 

Andreas  Guarnerius  was  the  closest  of  all  the  copyists 
of  the  Amati ;  so  close,  indeed,  that  his  genuine  violins 
are  nearly  always  sold  as  Amati.  Unfortunately  he 
imitated  the  small  pattern.  His  wood  and  varnish  are 
exactly  like  Amati ;  there  is,  however,  a  peculiar  way 
of   cutting  the  lower  wing  of  his  sound-holes  that  be- 


CREMONA   FIDDLES.  Qb 

trays  him  at  once.  "Wlien  you  find  liim  witli  the  border 
high  and  broad,  and  the  purfling  grand,  you  may  suspect 
his  son  Petrus  of  helping  him,  for  his  own  style  is 
petty.  His  basses  few,  but  fine.  Petrus  Guarnerius  of 
Cremona  makes  violins  prodigiously  bomhes,  and  more 
adapted  to  grumbling  inside  than  singing  out;  but  their 
appearance  magnificent :  a  grand  deep  border,  very  noble, 
sound-hole  and  scroll  Amatise,  and  a  deep  orange  varnish 
that  nothing  can  surpass.  His  violins  are  singularly 
scarce  in  England.  I  hope  to  see  one  at  the  Exhibition 
before  it  closes. 

Joseph,  his  brother,  is  a  thorough  original.  His  vio- 
lins are  narrowed  under  the  shoulder  in  a  way  all  his 
own.  As  to  model,  his  fiddles  are  bomhes  like  his 
brother's ;  and,  as  the  centre  has  generally  sunk  from 
weakness,  the  violin  presents  a  great  bump  at  the  upper 
part  and  another  at  the  lower.  The  violin  97  is  by  this 
maker,  and  is  in  pure  and  perfect  condition ;  but  the 
wood  having  no  figure,  the  beauty  of  the  varnish  is  not 
appreciated.  He  is  the  king  of  the  varnishers.  He  was 
the  first  man  at  Cremona  that  used  red  varnish  oftener 
than  pale,  and  in  that  respect  was  the  teacher  even  of 
Stradiuarius.  When  this  maker  deviates  from  his  cus- 
tom and  puts  really  good  hare-wood  into  a  violin,  then 
his  glorious  varnish  gets  fair  play,  and  nothing  can  live 
beside  him.  The  other  day  a  violin  of  this  make  with 
fine  wood,  but  undersized,  was  put  up  at  an  auction  with- 
out a  name.  I  suppose  nobody  knew  fhe  maker,  for  it 
was  sold  on  its  merits,  and  fetched  £160.  I  brought 
that  violin  into  the  country  ;  gave  a  dealer  £24  for  it 
in  Paris. 

He  made  a  very  few  flatter  violins,  that  are  worth  any 
money. 


66  KEA-DTANA. 

Petrus  Guarnerius,  tlie  son  of  this  Joseph,  learned 
his  business  in  Cremona,  but  migrated  early  to  Venice. 
He  worked  there  from  1725  to  1746.  He  made  most 
beautiful  tenors  and  basses,  but  was  not  so  happy  in  his 
violins.  His  varnish  very  fine,  but  paler  than  his 
father's. 

Joseph  Guarnerius,  of  Cremona,  made  violins  from 
about  1725  to  1745.  His  first  epoch  is  known  only  to 
connoisseurs  ;  in  outline  it  is  hewed  out  under  the  shoul- 
der like  the  fiddles  of  Joseph,  son  of  Andrew,  who  was 
then  an  old  hddle-maker  ;  but  the  model  all  his  own ; 
even,  regular,  and  perfect.  Sound-hole  long  and  charac- 
teristic, head  rather  mean  for  him ;  he  made  but  few  of 
these  essays,  and  then  went  to  a  different  and  admirable 
style,  a  most  gracful  and  elegant  violin,  which  has  been 
too  loosely  described  as  a  copy  of  Stradiuarius ;  it  is  not 
that,  but  a  fine  violin  in  which  a  downright  good  work- 
man profits  by  a  great  contemporary  artist's  excellences, 
yet  without  servility.  These  violins  are  not  longer  nor 
stiffer  in  the  inner  bought  than  Stradiuarius :  they  are 
rather  narrow  than  broad  below  cut  after  the  plan  of 
Stradiuarius,  though  not  so  well,  in  the  central  part,  the 
sound-holes  exquisitely  cut,  neither  too  stiff  nor  too 
flowing,  the  wood  between  the  curves  of  the  sound-holes 
remarkably  broad.  The  scroll  grandiose,  yet  well  cut, 
and  the  nozzle  of  the  scroll  and  the  little  platform. 
They  are  generally  purfled  through  both  pegs,  like  Stradi- 
uarius ;  the  wood  very  handsome,  varnish  a  rich  golden 
brown.  I  brought  three  of  this  epoch  into  the  country  ; 
one  was  sold  the  other  day  at  Christie's  for  £260, 
(bought,  I  believe,  by  Lord  Dunmore,)  and  is  worth 
£350  as  prices  go.  This  epoch,  unfortunately,  is  not 
yet  represented  in  the  collection. 


CBEMOXA   FIDDLES.  67 

The  next  epoch  is  nobly  represented  by  93,  94,  95. 
All  these  violins  have  the  broad  centre,  the  grand  long 
inner  bought,  stiffish  yet  not  ungraceful,  the  long  and 
rather  upright  sound-hole,  but  well  cut ;  the  grand  scroll, 
cut  all  in  a  hurry,  but  noble.  93  is  a  little  the  grander 
in  make  I  think ;  the  purfiing  being  set  a  hair's  breadth 
farther  in,  the  scroll  magnificent ;  but  observe  the  haste 
—  the  deep  gauge-marks  on  the  side  of  the  scroll ;  here 
is  already  an  indication  of  the  slovenliness  to  come : 
varnish  a  lovely  orange,  wood  beautiful ;  two  cracks  in 
the  belly,  one  from  the  chin-mark  to  the  sound-hole. 
94  is  a  violin  of  the  same  make,  and  without  a  single 
crack ;  the  scroll  is  not  quite  so  grandiose  as  93,  but  the 
rest  incomparable ;  the  belly  pure  and  beautiful,  the 
back  a  picture.  There  is  nothing  in  the  room  that  equals 
in  picturesqueness  the  colours  of  this  magnificent  piece : 
time  and  fair  play  have  worn  it  thus ;  first,  there  is  a 
narrow  irregular  line  of  wear  caused  by  the  hand  in 
shifting,  next  comes  a  sheet  of  ruby  varnish,  with  no 
wear  to  speak  of ;  then  an  irregular  piece  is  worn  out 
the  size  of  a  sixpence ;  then  more  varnish ;  then,  from 
the  centre  do^vnwards,  a  grand  wear,  the  size  and  shape 
of  a  large  curving  pear ;  this  ends  in  a  broad  zigzag 
ribbon  of  varnish,  and  then  comes  the  bare  wood  caused 
by  the  friction  in  playing,  but  higher  up  to  the  left  a 
score  of  great  bold  chips.  It  is  the  very  beau-ideal  of 
the  red  Cremona  violin,  adorned,  not  injured,  by  a  cen- 
tury's fair  wear.  No.  95  is  a  roughish  specimen  of  the 
same  epoch,  not  so  brilliant,  but  with  its  own  charm. 
Here  the  gauge-marks  of  impatience  are  to  be  seen  in 
the  very  border,  and  I  should  have  expected  to  see  the 
stiff-throated  scroll,  for  it  belongs  to  this  form. 

The  next  epoch  is  rougher  still,  and  is  generally,  but 


68  KEADIANA. 

not  always,  higher  built,  \vith  a  stiff-throated  scroll,  and 
a  stiff,  quaint  sound-hole  that  is  the  delight  of  connois- 
seurs ;  and  such  is  the  force  of  genius  that  I  believe  in 
our  secret  hearts  we  love  these  impudent  fiddles  best  — 
they  are  so  full  of  chic.  After  that,  he  abuses  the  pa- 
tience of  his  admirers ;  makes  his  fiddles  of  a  preposter- 
ous height,  with  sound-holes  long  enough  for  a  tenor ; 
but,  worst  of  all,  indifferent  wood  and  downright  bad 
varnish  —  varnish  worth}^  only  of  the  Guadagnini  tribe, 
and  not  laid  on  by  the  method  of  his  contemporaries. 
Indeed,  I  sadly  fear  it  was  this  great  man  who,  by  his 
ill-example  in  1740-45,  killed  the  varnish  of  Cremona. 
Thus  —  to  show  the  range  of  the  subject  —  out  of  five 
distinct  epochs  in  the  work  of  this  extraordinary  man 
we  have  only  one  and  a  half,  so  to  speak,  represented 
even  in  this  noble  collection  —  the  greatest  by  far  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  But  I  hope  to  see  all  these  gaps 
filled,  and  also  to  see  in  the  collection  a  Stradiuarius 
violin  of  that  kind  I  call  the  dolphin-backed.  This  is  a 
mere  matter  of  picturesque  wear.  AVlien  a  red  Stradiua- 
rius violin  is  made  of  soft  velvety  wood,  and  the  varnish 
is  just  half  worn  off  the  back  in  a  rough  triangular  form, 
that  produces  a  certain  beauty  of  light  and  shade  which 
is  in  my  opinion  the  7ie  2>^us  ultra.  These  violins  are 
rare.  I  never  had  but  two  in  my  life.  A  very  obliging 
dealer,  who  knows  my  views,  has  promised  his  co-opera- 
tion, and  I  think  England,  which  cuts  at  present  rather 
too  poor  a  figure  in  respect  of  this  maker,  will  add  a 
dolphin-backed  Stradiuarius  to  the  collection  before  it  is 
dispersed. 

Carlo  Bergoxzi,  if  you  go  by  gauging  and  purfling, 
is  of  course  an  inferior  make  to  the  Amati ;  but,  if  that 
is  to  be  the  line  of  reasoning,  he  is  superior  to  Joseph 


CREMONA   FIDDLES.  69 

Guarnerius.  We  ought  to  be  in  one  story;  if  Joseph 
Guarnerius  is  the  second  maker  of  Cremona,  it  follows 
that  Carlo  Bergonzi  is  the  third.  Fine  size,  reasonable 
outline,  flat  and  even  model,  good  wood,  work,  and  var- 
nish, and  an  indescribable  air  of  grandeur  and  impor- 
tance. He  is  quite  as  rare  as  Joseph  Guarnerius. 
Twenty-five  years  ago  I  ransacked  Europe  for  him  — 
for  he  is  a  maker  I  always  loved  —  and  I  coulcl  obtain 
but  few.  No.  109  was  one  of  them,  and  the  most  re- 
markable, take  it  altogether.  In  this  one  case  he  has 
really  set  himself  to  copy  Stradiuarius.  He  has  com- 
posed his  purfling  in  the  same  proportions,  which  was 
not  at  all  his  habit.  He  has  copied  the  sound-hole 
closely,  and  has  even  imitated  that  great  man's  freak  of 
delicately  hollowing  out  the  lower  wood-work  of  the 
sound-hole.  The  varnish  of  this  violin  is  as  fine  in 
colour  as  any  pale  Stradiuarius  in  the  world,  and  far 
superior  in  body  to  most  of  them ;  but  that  is  merely 
owing  to  its  rare  preservation.  Most  of  these  pale 
Stradiuariuses,  and  especially  Mrs.  Jay's  and  No.  86, 
had  once  varnish  on  them  as  beautiful  as  is  now  on  this 
chef-d^ (Euvre  of  Carlo  Bergonzi. 

Monsieur  Fetis  having  described  Michael  Angelo  Ber- 
gonzi as  a  pupil  of  Stradiuarius,  and  English  writers 
having  blindly  followed  him,  this  seems  a  fit  place  to 
correct  that  error.  ^Michael  Angelo  Bergonzi  was  the 
son  of  Carlo ;  began  to  work  after  the  death  of  Stradiua- 
rius, and  imitated  nobody  but  his  father  —  and  him 
vilely.  His  corners  are  not  corners,  but  peaks.  See 
them  once,  you  never  forget  them;  but  you  pray 
Heaven  you  may  never  see  them  again.  His  ticket 
runs,  "  Michel  Angelo  Bergonzi  figlio  di  Carlo,  f ece  nel 
Cremona,"    from   1750  to  1780.     Of   Nicholas,   son    of 


70  READ  I  ANA. 

Michael  Angelo,  I  have  a  ticket  dated  1796,  but  he 
doubtless  began  before  that  and  worked  till  18.30.  He 
lived  till  1838,  was  well  known  to  Tarisio,  and  it  is  from 
him  alone  we  have  learned  the  house  Stradiuarius  lived 
in.  There  is  a  tenor  by  Michael  Angelo  Bergonzi  to  be 
seen  at  Mr.  Cox,  the  picture  dealer,  Pall-mall,  and  one 
by  Nicholas,  in  Mr.  Chanot's  shop,  in  Wardour-street. 
Neither  of  these  Bergonzi  knew  how  their  own  progen- 
itor varnished  any  more  than  my  housemaid  does. 

Stainer,  a  mixed  maker.  He  went  to  Cremona  too 
late  to  unlearn  his  German  style,  but  he  moderated  it, 
and  does  not  scoop  so  badly  as  his  successors.  The 
model  of  his  tenor,  especially  the  back,  is  very  fine. 
The  peculiar  defect  of  it  is  that  it  is  purfled  too  near 
the  border,  which  always  gives  meanness.  This  is  the 
more  unfortunate,  that  really  he  was  freer  from  this 
defect  than  his  imitators.  He  learned  to  varnish  in 
Cremona,  but  his  varnish  is  generally  paler  than  the 
native  Cremonese.  This  tenor  is  exceptional :  it  has  a 
rose-coloured  varnish  that  nothing  can  surpass.  It  is 
lovely. 

Sanctus  Seraphin.  —  This  is  a  true  Venetian  maker. 
The  Venetian  born  was  always  half-Cremonese,  half- 
German.  In  this  bass,  which  is  his  uniform  style,  you 
see  a  complete  mastery  of  the  knife  and  the  gauge. 
Neither  the  Stradiuarius  nor  the  Amati  ever  purfled  a 
bass  more  finely,  and,  to  tell  the  truth,  rarely  so  finely. 
But  oh  !  the  miserable  scroll,  the  abominable  sound-hole  ! 
Here  he  shows  the  cloven  foot,  and  is  more  German  than 
Stainer.  Uniformity  was  never  carried  so  far  as  by  this 
natty  workman ;  one  violin  exactly  like  the  next ;  one 
bass  the  image  of  its  predecessor.  His  varnish  never 
varies.     It  is  always  slightly  opaque.     This  is  observed 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  71 

in  his  violins,  but  it  escapes  detection  in  his  basses,  be- 
cause it  is  but  slight,  after  all,  and  the  wonderful  wood 
he  put  into  his  basses,  shines  through  that  slight  defect 
and  hides  it  from  all  but  practised  eyes.  He  had  pur- 
chased a  tree  or  a  very  large  log  of  it ;  for  this  is  the 
third  bass  I  have  seen  of  this  wonderful  wood.  Now-a- 
days  you  might  cut  down  a  forest  of  sycamore  and  not 
match  it;  those  veteran  trees  are  all  gone.  He  has  a 
feature  all  to  himself ;  his  violins  have  his  initials  in 
ebony  let  into  the  belly  under  the  broad  part  of  the  tail- 
piece. This  natty  Venetian  is  the  only  old  violin  maker 
I  know  who  could  write  well.  The  others  bungle  that 
part  of  the  date  they  are  obliged  to  write  in  the  tickets. 
This  one  writes  it  in  a  hand  like  copper  plate,  whence  I 
suspect  he  was  himself  the  engraver  of  his  ticket,  which 
is  unique.  It  is  four  times  the  size  of  a  Cremonese 
ticket,  and  has  a  scroll  border  composed  thus  :  —  The 
sides  of  a  parallelogram  are  created  by  four  solid  lines 
like  sound-holes ;  these  are  united  at  the  sides  by  two 
leaves  and  at  the  centre  by  two  shells.  Another  serpen- 
tine line  is  then  coiled  all  round  them  at  short  intervals, 
and  within  the  parallelogram  the  ticket  is  printed :  — 

Sanctus  Seraphin  Utinensis 
Fecit  Venetiis,  anno  17 — . 

The  Mighty  Venetian.  —  I  come  now  to  a  truly  re- 
markable piece,  a  basso  di  camera  that  comes  modestly 
into  the  room  without  a  name,  yet  there  is  nothing  except 
Xo.  91  that  sends  such  a  thrill  through  the  true  connois- 
seur. The  outline  is  grotesque  but  original,  the  model 
full  and  swelling  but  not  bumpy,  the  wood  detestable ; 
the  back  is  hare-wood,  but  without  a  vestige  of  figure ;  so 
it  might  just  as  well  be  elm:  the  belly,  instead  of  being 


72  READIANA. 

made  of  mountain  deal  grown  on  the  sunny  side  of  the 
Alps,  is  a  piece  of  house  timber.  Now  these  materials 
would  kill  any  other  maker  ;  yet  this  mighty  bass  stands 
its  ground.  Observe  the  fibre  of  the  belly ;  here  is  the 
deepest  red  varnish  in  the  room,  and  laid  on  with  an 
enormous  brush.  Can  you  see  the  fibre  through  the  thin 
varnish  of  Sanctus  Seraphin  as  plainly  as  you  can  see 
the  fibre  through  this  varnish  laid  on  as  thick  as  paint  ? 
So  much  for  clearness.  Now  for  colour.  Let  the  stu- 
dent stand  before  this  bass,  get  the  varnish  into  his 
mind,  and  then  walk  rapidly  to  any  other  instrument  in 
the  room  he  has  previously  determined  to  compare  with 
it.  This  will  be  a  revelation  to  him  if  he  has  eyes  in 
his  head. 

And  this  miracle  comes  in  without  a  name,  and  there- 
fore, is  passed  over  by  all  sham  judges.  And  why  does 
it  come  without  a  name  ?  I  hear  a  French  dealer  ad- 
vised those  who  framed  the  catalogue.  But  the  fact  is 
that  if  a  man  once  narrows  his  mind  to  three  or  four 
makers,  and  imagines  they  monopolize  excellence,  he 
never  can  be  a  judge  of  old  instruments,  the  study  is  so 
wide  and  his  mind  artificially  narrowed.  Example  of 
this  false  method :  Mr.  Faulconer  sends  in  a  bass,  which 
he  calls  Andreas  Guarnerius.  An  adviser  does  not  see 
that,  and  suggests  "  probably  by  Amati.''  Now  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  '^probably  by  Amati,"  any  more  than 
there  is  probably  the  sun  or  the  moon.  That  bass  is  by 
David  Tecchler,  of  Eome  ;  but  it  is  a  masterpiece ;  and 
so,  because  he  has  done  better  than  usual,  the  poor  devil 
is  to  be  robbed  of  his  credit,  and  it  is  to  be  given,  first 
to  one  maker  ivho  is  in  the  ring  and  then  to  another,  who 
is  in  the  ring.  The  basso  di  camera,  which  not  being  in 
the  ring,  comes  without  a  name,  is  by  Domenico  Monta- 


CKEMOXA   FIDDLES.  73 

gnana  of  Venice,  the  greatest  maker  of  basses  in  all  Venice 
or  Cremona  except  one.  If  this  bass  had  only  a  decent 
piece  of  wood  at  the  back,  it  would  extinguish  all  the 
other  basses.  But  we  can  remedy  that  defect.  Basses 
by  this  maker  exist  with  line  wood.  Mr.  Hart,  senior, 
sold  one  some  twenty  years  ago  with  yellow  varnish, 
and  wood  stripad  like  a  tiger's  back.  Should  these 
lines  meet  the  eye  of  the  purchaser,  I  shall  feel  grateful 
if  he  will  communicate  with  me  thereupon. 

I  come  now  to  the  last  of  the  Goths,  thus  catalogued. 
No.  100,  "  ascribed  to  Guarnerius.  Probably  by  Stori- 
oni." 

Lorenzo  Storioni  is  a  maker  who  began  to  work  at 
Cremona  about  1780.  He  has  a  good  model  but  wretched 
spirit  varnish.  Violin  No.  100  is  something  much  bet- 
ter.   It  is  a  violin  made  before  1760  by  Landolfo  of  Milan. 

He  is  a  maker  well  known  to  experienced  dealers  who 
can  take  their  minds  out  of  the  ring,  but,  as  the  writers 
seem  a  little  confused,  and  talk  of  two  Landulphs,  a 
Charles  and  a  Ferdinand,  I  may  as  well  say  here  that 
the  two  are  one.     This  is  the  true  ticket : — 

Carolus  Ferdinandus  Landiilphus, 
fecit  Mediolani  in  via  S.  Mar- 
garitse,  anno  1756. 

Stiff  inner  bought  really  something  like  Joseph  Guar- 
nerius ;  but  all  the  rest  quite  unlike :  scroll  very  mean, 
varnish  good,  and  sometimes  very  line.  Mr.  Moore's,  in 
point  of  varnish,  is  a  fine  specimen.  It  has  a  deeper, 
nobler  tint  than  usual.  This  maker  is  very  interesting, 
on  account  of  his  being  absolutely  the  last  Italian  who 
used  the  glorious  varnish  of  Cremona.  It  died  first  at 
Cremona ;  lingered  a  year  or  two  more  at  Venice  ;  Lan- 


74  READIANA. 

dolfo  retained   it  at   Milan  till   1760,  and  with  him   it 
ended. 

In  my  next  and  last  article  I  will  deal  with  the  var- 
nish of  Cremona,  as  illustrated  by  No.  91  and  other 
specimens,  and  will  enable  the  curious  to  revive  that 
lost  art  if  they  choose. 

FOUETH   LETTER. 

August  S\st,  1872. 

The  fiddles  of  Cremona  gained  their  reputation  by 
superior  tone,  but  they  hold  it  now  mainly  by  their  beauty. 
Eor  thirty  years  past  violins  have  been  made  equal  in 
model  to  the  chef-d^ oeuvres  of  Cremona,  and  stronger  in 
wood  than  Stradiuarius,  and  more  scientific  than  Guar- 
nerius  in  the  thicknesses.  This  class  of  violin  is  hideous, 
but  has  one  quality  in  perfection  —  Power  ;  whilst  the 
masterpieces  of  Cremona  eclipse  every  new  violin  in 
sweetness,  oiliness,  crispness,  and  volume  of  tone  as  dis- 
tinct from  loudness.  Age  has  dried  their  vegetable 
juices,  making  the  carcass  much  lighter  than  that  of  a 
new  violin,  and  those  light  dry  frames  vibrate  at  a  touch. 

But  M.  Fetis  goes  too  far  when  he  intimates  that 
Stradiuarius  is  louder  as  well  as  sweeter  than  Lupot, 
Gand,  or  Bernardel.  Take  a  hundred  violins  by  Strad- 
iuarius and  open  them ;  you  find  about  ninety-five 
patched  in  the  centre  with  new  wood.  The  connecting 
link  is  a  sheet  of  glue.  And  is  glue  a  fine  resonant  sub- 
stance ?  And  are  the  sjlue  and  the  new  wood  of  John 
Bull  and  Jean  Crapaud  transmogrified  into  the  wood  of 
Stradiuarius  by  merely  sticking  on  to  it  ?  Is  it  not  ex- 
travagant to  quote  patched  violins  as  beyond  rivalry  in 
all  the  qualities  of  sound  ?     How  can  they  be  the  loud- 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  75 

est,  when  the  centre  of  the  sound-board  is  a  mere  sand- 
wich, composed  of  the  maker's  thin  wood,  a  buttering  of 
glue,  and  a  huge  slice  of  new  wood  ? 

Joseph  Guarnerius  has  plenty  of  wood  ;  but  his  thick- 
nesses are  not  always  so  scientific  as  those  of  the  best 
modern  fiddle-makers  ;  so  that  even  he  can  be  rivalled  in 
power  by  a  new  violin,  though  not  in  richness  and  sweet- 
ness. Consider,  then,  these  two  concurrent  phenomena, 
that  for  twenty-five  years  new  violins  have  been  better 
made  for  sound  than  they  ever  were  made  in  this  world, 
yet  old  Cremona  violins  have  nearly  doubled  in  price, 
and,  you  will  divine,  as  the  truth  is,  that  old  fiddles  are 
not  bought  by  the  ear  alone.  I  will  add  that  100  years 
ago,  when  the  violins  of  Brescia  and  of  Stradiuarius  and 
Guarnerius  were  the  only  well-modelled  violins,  they 
were  really  bought  by  the  ear,  and  the  prices  were  mod- 
erate. Now  they  are  in  reality  bought  by  the  eye,  and 
the  price  is  enormous.  The  reason  is  that  their  tone  is 
good  but  their  appearance  inimitable  ;  because  the  mak- 
ers chose  fine  wood  and  laid  on  a  varnish  highly  coloured, 
yet  clear  as  crystal,  with  this  strange  property  —  it  be- 
comes far  more  beautiful  by  time  and  usage :  it  wears 
softly  away,  or  chips  boldly  away,  in  such  forms  as  to 
make  the  whole  violin  picturesque,  beautiful,  various, 
and  curious. 

To  approach  the  same  conclusion  by  a  different  road 
—  Ko.  94  is  a  violin  whose  picturesque  beauty  I  have 
described  already ;  twenty-five  years  ago  Mr.  Plowden 
gave  £450  for  it.  It  is  now,  I  suppose,  worth  £500. 
Well,  knock  that  violin  down  and  crack  it  in  two  places, 
it  will  sink  that  moment  to  the  value  of  the  "  violon  du 
diable,"  and  be  worth  £350.  But  collect  twenty  ama- 
teurs all  ready  to  buy  it,  and,  instead  of  cracking  it,  dip 


70  READIANA. 

it  into  a  jar  of  spirits  and  wash  the  varnish  off.  Not 
one  of  those  customers  will  give  you  above  £40  for  it; 
nor  would  it  in  reality  be  worth  quite  so  much  in  the 
market.  Take  another  example.  There  is  a  beautiful 
and  very  perfect  violin  by  Stradiuarius,  which  the  Times, 
in  an  article  on  these  instruments,  calls  La  Messie. 
These  leading  journals  have  private  information  on  ev- 
ery subject,  even  grammar.  I  prefer  to  call  it  —  after 
the  very  intelligent  man  to  whom  we  owe  the  sight  of  it 
—  the  Vuillaume  Stradiuarius.  Well,  the  Vuillaume 
Stradiuarius  is  worth,  as  times  go,  £600  at  least.  Wash 
off  the  varnish,  it  would  be  worth  £35  ;  because,  unlike 
No.  9J,  it  has  one  little  crack.  As  a  further  illustration 
that  violins  are  heard  by  the  eye,  let  me  remind  your 
readers  of  the  high  prices  at  which  numberless  copies 
of  the  old  makers  were  sold  in  Paris  for  many  years. 
The  inventors  of  this  art  undertook  to  deliver  a  new  vio- 
lin, that  in  usage  and  colour  of  the  worn  parts  should 
be  exactly  like  an  old  and  worn  violin  of  some  favourite 
maker.  Now,  to  do  this  with  white  wood  was  impossi- 
ble ;  so  the  wood  was  baked  in  the  oven  or  coloured  yel- 
low with  the  smoke  of  sulphuric  acid,  or  so  forth,  to 
give  it  the  colour  of  age ;  but  these  processes  kill  the 
wood  as  a  vehicle  of  sound  ;  and  these  copies  were,  and 
are,  the  worst  musical  instruments  Europe  has  created 
in  this  century ;  and,  bad  as  they  are  at  starting,  they 
get  worse  every  year  of  their  untuneful  existence ;  yet, 
because  they  flattered  the  eye  with  something  like  the 
light  and  shade  and  picturesqueness  of  the  Cremona  vi- 
olin, these  pseudo-antiques,  though  illimitable  in  num- 
ber, sold  like  wildfire  ;  and  hundreds  of  self-deceivers 
heard  them  by  the  eye,  and  fancied  these  tinpots 
sounded  divinely.     The  hideous  red  violins  of   Bernar- 


CREMONA   FIDDLES.  77 

del,  G-and,  and  an  English  maker  or  two,  are  a  reaction 
against  those  copies ;  they  are  made  honestly  with 
white  wood,  and  they  will,  at  all  events,  improve  in 
sound  every  year  and  every  decade.  It  comes  to  this, 
then,  that  the  varnish  of  Cremona,  as  operated  on  by 
time  and  usage,  has  an  inimitable  beauty,  and  we  pay  a 
high  price  for  it  in  second-class  makers,  and  an  enor- 
mous price  in  a  fine  Stradiuarius  or  Joseph  Guarnerius. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  many  violin-makers  have  tried 
hard  to  discover  the  secret  of  this  varnish ;  many  chem- 
ists have  given  days  and  nights  of  anxious  study  to  it. 
More  than  once,  even  in  my  time,  hopes  have  run  high, 
but  only  to  fall  again.  Some  have  even  cried  Eureka  ! 
to  the  public :  but  the  moment  others  looked  at  their 
discovery  and  compared  it  with  the  real  thing,  "  inex- 
tinguishable laughter  shook  the  skies."  At  last  despair 
has  succeeded  to  all  that  energetic  study,  and  the  var- 
nish of  Cremona  is  sullenly  given  up  as  a  lost  art. 

I  have  heard  and  read  a  great  deal  about  it,  and  I 
think  I  can  state  the  principal  theories  briefly,  but  intel- 
ligibly. 

1.  It  used  to  be  stoutly  maintained  that  the  basis  was 
amber ;  that  these  old  Italians  had  the  art  of  infusing 
amber  without  impairing  its  transparency ;  once  fused, 
by  dry  heat,  it  could  be  boiled  into  a  varnish  with  oil 
and  spirit  of  turpentine,  and  combined  with  transparent 
yet  lasting  colours.  To  convince  me,  they  used  to  rub 
the  worn  part  of  a  Cremona  with  their  sleeves,  and  then 
put  the  fiddle  to  their  noses,  and  smell  amber.  Then  I, 
burning  with  love  of  knowledge,  used  to  rub  the  fiddle 
very  hard  and  whip  it  to  my  nose,  and  not  smell  amber. 

But  that  might  arise  in  some  measure  from  there  not 
being  any  amber  there  to  smell.     (IST.  B. —  These  amber- 


78  READIANA. 

seekinsj  worthies  never  rubbed  the  coloured  varnish  on 
an  old  violin.    Yet  their  theory  had  placed  amber  there.) 

2.  That  time  does  it  all.  The  violins  of  Stradiuarius 
were  raw,  crude  things  at  starting,  and  the  varnish 
rather  opaque. 

3.  Two  or  three  had  the  courage  to  say  it  was  spirit 
varnish,  and  alleged  in  proof  that  if  you  drop  a  drop  of 
alcohol  on  a  Stradiuarius,  it  tears  the  varnish  off  as  it 
runs. 

4.  The  far  more  prevalent  notion  was  that  it  is  an  oil 
varnish,  in  support  of  which  they  pointed  to  the  rich  ap- 
pearance of  what  they  call  the  bare  wood,  and  contrasted 
the  miserable  hungry  appearance  of  the  wood  in  all  old 
violins  kno\vn  to  be  spirit  varnished  —  for  instance, 
Nicholas  Gagliano,  of  Naples,  and  Jean  Baptiste  Gua- 
dagnini,  of  Piacenza,  Italian  makers  contemporary  with 
Joseph  Guarnerius. 

5.  That  the  secret  has  been  lost  by  adulteration.  The 
old  Cremonese  and  Venetians  got  pure  and  sovereign 
gums,  that  have  retired  from  commerce. 

Now,  as  to  theory  No.  1. —  Surely  amber  is  too  dear 
a  gum  and  too  impracticable  for  two  hundred  fiddle- 
makers  to  have  used  in  Italy.  Till  fused  by  dry  heat  it 
is  no  more  soluble  in  varnish  than  quartz  is ;  and  who 
can  fuse  it  ?  Copal  is  inclined  to  melt,  but  amber  to 
burn,  to  catch  fire,  to  do  anything  but  melt.  Put  the  two 
gums  to  a  lighted  candle,  you  will  then  appreciate  the 
difference.  I  tried  more  than  one  chemist  in  the  fusing 
of  amber ;  it  came  out  of  their  hands  a  dark  brown 
opaque  substance,  rather  burnt  than  fused.  When  really 
fused  it  is  a  dark  olive  green,  as  clear  as  crystal.  Yet  I 
never  knew  but  one  man  who  could  bring  it  to  this,  and 


CREMONA    FIDDLES.  79 

he  had  special  machinery,  invented  by  himself,  for  it ; 
in  spite  of  which  he  nearly  burnt  down  his  house  at  it 
one  day.  I  believe  the  whole  amber  theory  comes  out 
of  a  verbal  equivoque  ;  the  varnish  of  the  Amati  was 
called  amber  to  mark  its  rich  colouf ,  and  your  a  priori 
reasoners  went  off  on  that,  forgetting  that  amber  must 
be  an  inch  thick  to  exhibit  the  colour  of  amber.  By  such 
reasoning  as  this  Mr.  Davidson,  in  a  book  of  grea.t  gen- 
eral merit,  is  misled  so  far  as  to  put  down  powdered 
glass  for  an  ingredient  in  Cremona  varnish.  Mark  the 
logic.  Glass  in  a  sheet  is  transparent ;  so  if  you  reduce 
it  to  powder  it  will  add  transparency  to  varnish.  Im- 
posed on  by  this  chimera,  he  actually  puts  powdered  glass, 
an  opaque  and  insoluble  sediment,  into  four  receipts  for 
Cremona  varnish. 

But  the  theories  2,  3,  4,  5  have  all  a  good  deal  of  truth 
in  them ;  their  fault  is  that  they  are  too  narrow,  and  too 
blind  to  the  truth  of  each  other.     Ix  this,  as  ix  every 

SCIENTIFIC  INQUIRY,  THE  TRUE  SOLUTION  IS  THAT  WHJCH 
RECONCILES  ALL  THE  TRUTHS  THAT  SEEM  AT  VARIANCE. 

The  way  to  discover  a  lost  art,  once  practised  with 
variations  by  a  hundred  people,  is  to  examine  very  closely 
the  most  brilliant  specimen,  the  most  characteristic  speci- 
men, and,  indeed,  the  most  extravagant,  specimen  —  if 
you  can  find  one.  I  took  that  way,  and  I  found  in  the 
chippiest  varnish  of  Stradiuarius,  viz.,  his  dark  red  var- 
nish, the  key  to  all  the  varnish  of  Cremona,  red  or  yellow. 
(N.B.  —  The  yellow  always  beat  me  dead,  till  I  got  to  it 
by  this  detour. )  There  is  no  specimen  in  the  collection 
of  this  red  varnish  so  violent  as  I  have  seen ;  but  Mr. 
Pawle's  bass,  No.  187,  will  do.  Please  walk  with  me 
up  to  the  back  of  that  bass,  and  let  us  disregard  all 
hypotheses  and  theories,  and  use  our  eyes.     What  do 


80  READIANA. 

we  see  before  us  ?  A  bass  with  a  red  varnish  that  chips 
very  readily  off  what  people  call  the  bare  wood.  But 
never  mind  what  these  echoes  of  echoes  call  it.  What 
is  it  ?  It  is  not  bare  wood.  l)are  wood  turns  a  dirty 
brown  with  age.  This  is  a  rich  and  lovely  yellow.  By 
its  colour  and  its  glassy  gloss,  and  by  disbelieving  what 
echoes  say  and  trusting  only  to  our  eyes,  we  may  see  at 
a  glance  it  is  not  bare  Avood,  but  highly  varnished  wood. 
This  varnish  is  evidently  oil,  and  contains  a  gum.  AUoav- 
ing  for  the  tendency  of  oil  to  run  into  the  wood,  I  should 
say  four  coats  of  oil  varnish :  and  this  they  call  the  bare 
wood.  We  have  now  discovered  the  first  process :  a 
clear  oil  varnish  laid  on  the  white  wood  with  some  trans- 
parent gum  not  high  coloured.  Now  proceed  a  step  fur- 
ther ;  the  red  and  chippy  varnish,  what  is  that  ?  "  Oh, 
that  is  a  varnish  of  the  same  quality  but  another  colour," 
say  the  theorists  No.  4.  "  How  do  you  know  ?  "  say  I. 
"  It  is  self-evident.  Would  a  man  begin  with  oil  varnish 
and  then  go  into  spirit  varnish  ?  "  is  their  reply.  Now 
observe,  this  is  not  humble  observation,  it  is  onl}^  rational 
preconception.  But  if  discovery  has  an  enemy  in  the 
human  mind,  that  enemy  is  preconception.  Let  us  then 
trust  only  to  humble  observation.  Here  is  a  clear  var- 
nish without  the  ghost  of  a  chip  in  its  nature ;  and  upon 
it  is  a  red  varnish  that  is  all  chip.  Does  that  look  as  if 
the  two  varnishes  were  homogeneous  ?  Is  chip  precisely 
the  same  thing  as  no  chip?  If  homogeneous,  there 
would  be  chemical  affinity  between  the  two.  But  this 
extreme  readiness  of  the  red  varnish  to  chip  away  from 
the  clear  marks  a  defect  of  chemical  affinity  between  the 
two.  Why,  if  you  were  to  put  your  thumbnail  against 
that  red  varnish,  a  little  piece  would  come  away  directly. 
This  is  not  so  in  any  known  case  of  oil  upon  oil.     Take 


CREMOXA   FIDDLES.  81 

old  Forster,  for  instance ;  he  begins  vfiih  clear  oil  var- 
nish ;  then  on  that  he  puts  a  distinct  oil  varnish  with 
the  colour  and  transparency  of  pea-soup.  You  will  not 
get  his  pea-soup  to  chip  off"  his  clear  varnish  in  a  hurry. 
There  is  a  bass  by  William  Forster  in  the  collection  a 
hundred  years  old  ;  but  the  wear  is  confined  to  the  places 
where  the  top  varnish  must  go  in  a  played  bass.  Every- 
where else  his  pea-soup  sticks  tight  to  his  clear  varnish, 
being  oil  upon  oil. 

Xow,  take  a  perfectly  distinct  line  of  observation.  In 
varnishes  oil  is  a  diluent  of  colour.  It  is  not  in  the 
power  of  man  to  charge  an  oil  varnish  with  colour  so 
highly  as  the  top  varnish  of  Mr.  Pawle's  bass  is  charged. 
And  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  clear  varnish  below 
has  filled  all  the  pores  of  the  wood ;  therefore  the  dilu- 
ent cannot  escape  into  the  wood,  and  so  leave  the  colour 
undiluted  ;  if  that  red  varnish  was  ever  oil  varnish,  every 
particle  of  the  oil  must  be  there  still.  AVhat,  in  that 
mere  film  so  crammed  with  colour  ?  Never !  Nor  yet 
in  the  top  varnish  of  the  Spanish  bass,  which  is  thinner 
still,  yet  more  charged  with  colour  than  any  topaz  of 
twice  the  thickness.  This,  then,  is  how  Antoniug  Stra- 
diuarius  varnished  Mr.  Pawle's  bass.  —  He  began  Avith 
three  or  four  coats  of  oil  varnish  containing  some  com- 
mon gum.  He  then  laid  on  several  coats  of  red  varnish, 
made  by  simply  dissolving  some  fine  red  unadulterated 
gum  in  spirit ;  the  spirit  evaporated  and  left  pure  gum 
lying  on  a  rich  oil  varnish,  from  which  it  chips  by  its 
dry  nature  and  its  utter  want  of  chemical  affinity  to  the 
substratum.  On  the  Spanish  bass  Stradiuarius  put  not 
more,  I  think,  than  two  coats  of  oil  varnish,  and  then  a 
spirit  varnish  consisting  of  a  different  gum,  less  chippy, 
but  even  more  tender  and  wearable  than  the  red.     Now 


82  BEADIANA. 

take  this  key  all  round  the  room,  and  you  will  find  there 
is  not  a  lock  it  will  not  open.  Look  at  the  varnish  on 
the  back  of  the  "  violon  du  diable,"  as  it  is  called.  There 
is  a  top  varnish  with  all  the  fire  of  a  topaz  and  far  more 
colour;  for  slice  the  deepest  topaz  to  that  thinness,  it 
would  pale  before  that  varnish.  And  why  ?  1st.  Be- 
cause this  is  no  oily  dilution ;  it  is  a  divine  unadulter- 
ated gum,  left  there  undiluted  by  evaporation  of  the 
spirituous  vehicle.  2nd.  Because  this  varnish  is  a  jewel 
with  the  advantage  of  a  foil  behind  it ;  that  foil  is  the 
fine  oil  varnish  underneath.  The  purest  specimen  of 
Stradiuarius's  red  varnish  in  the  room  is,  perhaps,  Mr. 
Fountaine's  kit.  Look  at  the  back  of  it  by  the  light  of 
these  remarks.  What  can  be  plainer  than  the  clear  oil 
varnish  with  not  the  ghost  of  a  chip  in  it,  and  the  glossy 
top  varnish,  so  charged  with  colour,  and  so  ready  to  chip 
from  the  varnish  below,  for  want  of  chemical  affinity  be- 
tween the  varnishes  ?  Tlie  basso  di  camera  by  Monla- 
gnana  is  the  same  thing.  See  the  bold  wear  on  the  back 
revealing  the  heterogeneous  varnish  below  the  red.  They 
are  all  the  same  thing.  The  palest  violins  of  Stradiua- 
rius  and  Amati  are  much  older  and  harder  worn  than 
Mr.  Pawle's  bass,  and  the  top  varnish  not  of  a  chippy 
character :  yet  look  at  them  closely  by  the  light  of  these 
remarks,  and  you  shall  find  one  of  two  phenomena  — 
either  the  tender  top  varnish  has  all  been  worn  away, 
and  so  there  is  nothing  to  be  inferred  one  way  or  other, 
or  else  there  are  flakes  of  it  left ;  and,  if  so,  these  flakes, 
however  thin,  shall  always  betray,  by  the  superior  vivid- 
ness of  their  colour  to  the  colour  of  the  subadjacent  oil 
varnish,  that  they  are  not  oil  varnish,  but  pure  gum  left 
there  by  evaporating  spirit  on  a  foil  of  beautiful  old  oil 
varnish.     Take  Mrs.  Jay's  Amatise  Stradiuarius ;  on  the 


CREMOXA    FIDDLES.  83 

back  of  that  violin  towards  the  top  there  is  a  mere  flake 
of  top  varnish  left  by  itself ;  all  round  it  is  nothing  left 
but  the  bottom  varnish.     That  fragment  of  top  varnish 
is  a  film  thinner  than  gold  leaf ;  yet  look  at  its  intensity ; 
it  lies  on  the  fine  old  oil  varnish  like  fixed  lightning,  it 
is  so  vivid.     It  is  just  as  distinct  from  the  oil  varnish 
as  is  the  red  varnish  of  the  kit.     Examine  the  Duke  of 
Cambridge's  violin,  or  any  other  Cremona  instrument  in 
the  whole  world  you  like ;  it  is  always  the  same  thing, 
though  not  so  self-evident  as  in  the  red  and  chippy  var- 
nishes.    The  Vuillaume  Stradiuarius,  not  being  worn, 
does  not  assist  us  in  this  particular  line  of  argument; 
but  it  does  not  contradict  us.     Indeed,  there  are  a  few 
little  chips  in  the  top  varnish  of  the  back,  and  they  re- 
veal a  heterogeneous  varnish  below,  with  its  rich  yellow 
colour  like  the  bottom  varnish  of  the  Pawle  bass.     More- 
over, if  you  look  at  the  top  varnish  closely  you  shall  see 
what  you  never  see  in  a  new  violin  of  our  day ;  not  a 
vulgar  glare  upon  the  surface,  but  a  gentle  inward  fire. 
Now  that  inward  fire,  I  assure  you,  is  mainly  caused  by 
the  oil  varnish  below ;  the  orange  varnish  above  has  a 
heterogeneous  foil  below.     That  inward  glow  is  charac- 
teristic of  all  foils.     If  you  could  see  the  Vuillaume  Stra- 
diuarius at  night  and  move  it  about  in  the  light  of  a 
candle,  you  would  be  amazed  at  the  fire  of  the  foil  and 
the  refraction  of  light. 

Thus,  then,  it  is.  The  unlucky  phrase  "varnish  of 
Cremona  "  has  weakened  men's  powers  of  observation  by 
fixing  a  preconceived  notion  that  the  varnish  must  be  all 
one  thing.     The  lost  secret  is  this.     The  Cremona 

VARNISH  is  not  A  VARNISH,  BUT  TWO  VARNISHES  ;  AND 
THOSE  VARNISHES  ALWAYS  HETEROGENEOUS  :  THAT  IS  TO 
SAY,    FIRST    THE    PORES    OF    THE  WOOD    ARE   PILLED    AND 


84  READIANA. 

THE  GRAIN  SHOWN  UP  BY  ONE,  BY  TWO,  BY  THREE,  AND 
SOMETIMES,  THOUGH  RARELY,  BY  FOUR  COATS  OF  FINE 
OIL    VARNISH    WITH     SOME    COMMON    BUT    CLEAR    GUM    IN 

SOLUTION.     Then  upon  this  oil  varnish,  when  dry, 

IS  laid  a  heterogeneous  VARNISH,  VIZ.  A  SOLUTION  IN 
SPIRIT  OF  SOME  SOVEREIGN,  HIGH  COLOURED,  PELLUCID, 
AND,     ABOVE    ALL,    TENDER     GUM.       Guill-laC,     which     foi' 

forty  years  has  been  the  mainstay  of  violin-makers,  must 
never  be  used ;  not  one  atom  of  it.  That  vile,  flinty  gum 
killed  varnish  at  Naples  and  Piacenza  a  hundred  and 
forty  years  ago,  as  it  kills  varnish  now.  Old  Cremona 
shunned  it,  and  whoever  employs  a  grain  of  it,  commits 
wilful  suicide  as  a  Cremonese  varnisher.  It  will  not 
wear ;  it  will  not  chip ;  it  is  in  every  respect  the  oppo- 
site of  the  Cremona  gums.  Avoid  it  utterly,  or  fail  hope- 
lessly, as  all  varnisher s  have  failed  since  that  fatal  gum 
came  in.  The  deep  red  varnish  of  Cremona  is  pure 
dragon's  blood ;  not  the  cake,  the  stick,  the  filthy  trash, 
which,  in  this  sinful  and  adulterating  generation,  is  re- 
tailed under  that  name,  but  the  tear  of  dragon's  blood, 
little  lumps  deeper  in  colour  than  a  carbuncle,  clear  as 
crystal,  and  fiery  as  a  ruby.  Unadulterated  dragon's 
blood  does  not  exist  in  commerce  west  of  Temple-bar ; 
but  you  can  get  it  by  groping  in  the  City  as  hard  as 
Diogenes  had  to  grope  for  an  honest  man  in  a  much  less 
knavish  town  than  London.  The  yellow  varnish  is  the 
unadulterated  tear  of  another  gum,  retailed  in  a  cake 
like  dragon's  blood,  and  as  great  a  fraud.  All  cakes  and 
sticks  presented  to  you  in  commerce  as  gums  are  auda- 
cious swindles.  A  true  gum  is  the  tear  of  a  tree.  For 
the  yellow  tear,  as  for  the  red,  grope  the  City  harder  than 
Diogenes.  The  orange  varnish  of  Peter  Guarnerius  and 
Stradiuarius  is  only  a  mixture  of  these  two  genuine  gums. 


CKEMONA    FIDDLES.  85 

Even  the  milder  reds  of  Stradiuarius  are  slightly  reduced 
with  the  yellow  gum.  The  Montagnana  bass  and  Xo.  94 
are  pure  dragon's  blood  mellowed  down  by  time  and 
exposure  only. 

A  violin  varnished  as  I  have  indicated  will  look  a  little 
better  than  other  new  violins  from  the  first ;  the  back 
will  look  nearly  as  well  as  the  Yuillaume  Stradiuarius, 
but  not  quite.  The  belly  will  look  a  little  better  if 
properly  prepared;  will  show  the  fibre  of  the  deal 
better.  But  its  principal  merit  is,  that  like  the  violins 
of  Cremona,  it  will  vastly  improve  in  beauty  if  much 
exposed  and  persistently  played.  And  that  improve- 
ment will  be  rapid,  because  the  tender  top  varnish  will 
wear  away  from  the  oily  substratum  four  times  as 
quickly  as  any  vulgar  varnish  of  the  day  will  chip  or 
wear.  We  cannot  do  what  Stradiuarius  could  not  do  — 
give  to  a  new  violin  the  peculiar  beauty,  that  comes  to 
heterogeneous  varnishes  of  Cremona  from  age  and  honest 
wear ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  one  hundred  years  are  required  to  develop  the  beauty 
of  any  Cremona  varnishes,  old  or  new.  The  ordinary  wear 
of  a  century  cannot  be  condensed  into  one  year  or  five, 
but  it  can  be  condensed  into  twenty  years.  Any  young 
amateur  may  live  to  play  on  a  magnificent  Cremona 
made  for  himself,  if  he  has  the  enthusiasm  to  follow  my 
directions.  Choose  the  richest  and  finest  wood ;  have 
the  violin  made  after  the  pattern  of  a  rough  Joseph 
Guarnerius;  then  you  need  not  sand-paper  the  back, 
sides,  or  head,  for  sand-paper  is  a  great  enemy  to  var- 
nish ;  it  drives  more  wood-dust  into  the  pores  than  you 
can  blow  out.  If  you  sand-paper  the  belly,  sponge  that 
finer  dust  out,  as  far  as  possible,  and  varnish  when  dry. 
That  will  do  no  harm,  and  throw  up  the  fibre.     Make 


86  KEADIANA. 

your  own  linseed  oil — the  linseed  oil  of  commerce  is 
adulterated  with  animal  oil  and  fish  oil,  which  are  non- 
drying  oils  —  and  varnish  as  I  have  indicated  above, 
and  when  the  violin  is  strung  treat  it  regularly  with  a 
view  to  fast  wear ;  let  it  hang  up  in  a  warm  place,  ex- 
posed to  dry  air,  night  and  day.  Never  let  it  be  shut 
up  in  a  case  except  for  transport.  Lend  it  for  months 
to  the  leader  of  an  orchestra.  Look  after  it,  and  see  that 
it  is  constantly  played  and  constantly  exposed  to  dry 
air  all  about  it.  Never  clean  it,  never  touch  it  with  a 
silk  handkerchief.  In  twenty  years  your  heterogeneous 
varnishes  will  have  parted  company  in  many  places. 
The  back  will  be  worn  quite  picturesque  ;  the  belly  will 
look  as  old  as  Joseph  Guarnerius  ;  there  will  be  a  deli- 
cate film  on  the  surface  of  the  grand  red  varnish  mel- 
lowed by  exposure  and  a  marvellous  fire  below.  In  a 
word,  you  will  have  a  glorious  Cremona  fiddle.  Do  you 
aspire  to  do  more,  and  to  make  a  downright  old  Cremona 
violin  ?  Then,  my  young  friend,  you  must  treat  your- 
self as  well  as  the  violin ;  you  must  not  smoke  all  day, 
nor  the  last  thing  at  night;  you  must  never  take  a  dram 
before  dinner  and  call  it  bitters  ;  you  must  be  as  true  to 
your  spouse  as  ever  you  can,  and,  in  a  word,  live  moder- 
ately, and  cultivate  good  temper  and  avoid  great  wrath. 
By  these  means,  Deo  volente^  you  shall  live  to  see  the 
violin  that  was  made  for  you  and  varnished  by  my  re- 
ceipt, as  old  and  worn  and  beautiful  a  Cremona  as  the 
Joseph  Guarnerius  No.  94,  beyond  which  nothing  can  go. 
To  show  the  fiddle-maker  what  may  be  gained  by 
using  as  little  sand-paper  as  possible,  let  him  buy  a  little 
of  Maunder's  palest  copal  varnish  5  then  let  him  put  a 
piece  of  deal  on  his  bench  and  take  a  few  shavings  off  it 
with  a  carpenter's  plane.      Let  him  lay  his  varnish  di- 


CEEMONA    FIDDLES.  87 

*• 

rectly  on  the  wood  so  planed.  It  will  have  a  fire  and  a 
beauty  he  will  never  quite  attain  to  by  scraping,  sand- 
papering, and  then  varnishing  the  same  wood  with  the 
same  varnish.  And  this  applies  to  hare-wood  as  well  as 
deal.  The  back"  of  the  Vuillaume  Stradiuarius,  which 
is  the  finest  part,  has  clearly  not  been  sandpapered  in 
places,  so  probably  not  at  all.  Wherever  it  is  possible 
varnish  after  cold  steel,  at  all  events  in  imitating  the 
Cremonese,  and  especially  Joseph  Guarnerius.  These, 
however,  are  minor  details,  which  I  have  only  inserted 
because  I  foresee  that  I  may  be  unable  to  return  to  this 
subject  in  writing,  though  I  shall  be  very  happy  to 
talk  about  it  at  my  own  place  to  anyone  who  really  cares 
about  the  matter.  However,  it  is  not  every  day  one  can 
restore  a  lost  art  to  the  world ;  and  I  hope  that,  and  my 
anxiety  not  to  do  it  by  halves,  will  excuse  this  prolix 
article. 

CHAELES  READE. 


88  KEADIANA. 


THE 

STORY  OF  THE  BOAT  RACE  OF  1872. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Observer." 

This  great  annual  race  has  become  a  national  event. 
The  rival  crews  are  watched  by  a  thousand  keen  eyes 
from  the  moment  they  appear  on  the  Thames ;  their 
trials  against  time  or  scratch  crews  are  noted  and 
reported  to  the  world  ;  criticism  and  speculation  are  in- 
termittent, and  the  press  paints  two  hundred  volumes 
about  the  race  before  ever  it  is  run. 

When  the  day  comes  England  suspends  her  liberties 
for  an  hour  or  two,  makes  her  police  her  legislators ;  and 
her  river,  though  by  laAv  a  highway,  becomes  a  race 
course :  passengers  and  commerce  are  both  swept  off  it 
not  to  spoil  the  sacred  sport ;  London  pours  out  her 
myriads ;  the  country  flows  in  to  meet  them ;  the  roads 
are  clogged  with  carriages  and  pedestrians  all  making 
for  the  river ;  its  banks  on  both  sides  are  blackened  by 
an  unbroken  multitude  live  miles  long ;  on  all  the 
bridges  that  command  the  race  people  hang  and  cluster 
like  swarming  bees :  windows,  seats,  balconies,  are 
crammed,  all  glowing  with  bright  colours  (blue  predomi- 
nating), and  sparkling  with  brighter  eyes  of  the  excited 
fair  ones. 

•    The  two  crews  battle  over  the  long  course  under  one 
continuous  roar  of  a  raging  multitude.     At  last  —  and 


1 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  BOAT  RACE  OF  1872.   89 

often  after  fluctuations  in  the  race  that  drive  the  crowd  all 
but  mad — there  is  a  puff  of  smoke,  a  loud  report,  one  boat 
has  won,  though  both  deserve ;  and  the  victors  are  the 
true  kings  of  all  that  mighty  throng ;  in  that  hour  the 
Premier  of  England,  the  Primate,  the  poet,  the  orator, 
the  philosopher  of  his  age,  would  walk  past  unheeded  if 
the  Stroke  oar  of  the  victorious  boat  stood  anywhere 
near. 

To  cynics  and  sedentary  students  all  this  seems 
childish,  and  looks  like  paying  to  muscle  a  homage  that 
is  never  given  by  acclamation  to  genius  and  virtue. 

But,  as  usual,  the  public  is  not  far  wrong ;  the  tri- 
umph, though  loud,  is  evanescent,  and  much  has  been 
done  and  endured  to  earn  it.  No  glutton,  no  wine- 
bibber,  no  man  of  impure  life  could  live  through  that 
great  pull ;  each  victor  ahstlnult  venere  et  vino,  sudavit 
et  alsit. 

The  captain  of  the  winning  boat  has  taught  Govern- 
ment a  lesson ;  for  in  selecting  his  men  he  takes  care  of 
Honour,  and  does  not  take  care  of  Dowb,  for  that  would 
be  to  throw  the  race  away  upon  dry  land  ;  but  the  public 
enthusiasm  rests  on  broader  and  more  obvious  grounds 
than  these.  Every  nation  has  a  right  to  admire  its  own 
traits  in  individuals,  when  those  traits  are  honourable 
and  even  innocent.  England  is  not  bound  to  admire 
those  athletes,  who  every  now  and  then  proclaim  their 
nationality  by  drinking  a  quart  of  gin  right  off  for  a 
wager ;  but  we  are  a  nation  great  upon  the  water,  and 
great  at  racing,  and  we  have  a  right  to  admire  these 
men,  who  combine  the  two  things  to  perfection.  This  is 
the  king  of  races,  for  it  is  run  b}^  the  king  of  animals 
working,  after  his  kind,  by  combination,  and  with  a  con- 
cert so  strong,  yet  delicate,  that  for  once  it  eclipses 


90  IlEADIANA. 

machinery.  But,  above  all,  here  is  an  example,  not  only 
of  strength,  wind,  spirit,  and  pluck  indomitable,  but  of 
pure  and  crystal  honour.  Foot  races  and  horse  races 
have  been  often  sold,  and  the  betters  betrayed ;  but  this 
race  never  —  and  it  never  will  be.  Here,  from  first  to 
last,  all  is  open,  because  all  is  fair  and  glorious  as  the 
kindred  daylight  it  courts.  We  hear  of  shivering  stable 
boys  sent  out  on  a  frosty  morning  to  try  race  horses  on 
the  sly,  and  so  give  the  proprietors  private  knowledge 
to  use  in  betting.  Sometimes  these  early  worms  have 
been  preceded  by  earlier  ones,  who  are  watching  behind 
a  hedge.  Then  shall  the  trainer  whisper  one  of  the 
boys  to  hold  in  the  faster  horse,  and  so  enact  a  profita- 
ble lie.  Not  so  the  University  crews  ;  they  make  trials 
in  broad  daylight  for  their  own  information :  and  those 
trials  are  always  faithful.  The  race  is  pure,  and  is  a 
strong  corrective  annually  administered  to  the  malprac- 
tices of  racing.  And  so  our  two  great  fountains  of 
learning  are  one  fount  of  honour,  God  be  thanked  for 
it !  So  the  people  do  well  to  roar  their  applause,  and 
every  nobleman  who  runs  horses  may  be  proud  to  take 
for  his  example  these  high-spirited  gentlemen,  who  nobly 
run  a  nobler  creature,  for  they  run  themselves.  The 
recent  feature  of  this  great  race  has  been  the  recovery 
of  Cambridge  in  1870  and  1871,  after  nine  successive 
defeats ;  defeats  the  more  remarkable  that  up  to  1861 
Oxford  was  behind  her  in  the  number  of  victories.  The 
main  cause  of  a  result  so  peculiar  was  that  system 
of  rowing  Oxford  had  invented  and  perfected.  The  true 
Oxford  stroke  is  slow  in  the  water  but  swift  in  the  air ; 
the  rower  goes  well  forward,  drops  his  oar  clean  into  the 
water,  goes  well  backward,  and  makes  his  stroke,  but, 
thi^  done,  comes  swiftly  forward  all  of  a  piece,  hands 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  BOAT  RACE  OF  1872.   91 

foremost.  Thus,  though,  a  slow  stroke,  it  is  a  very- 
busy  one.  Add  to  this  a  clean  feather,  and  a  high 
sweep  of  the  oars  to  avoid  rough  water,  and  you  have 
the  true  Oxford  stroke,  which  is  simply  the  perfection 
of  rowing,  and  can,  of  course,  be  defeated  by  superior 
strength  or  bottom ;  but,  cceteris  paribusy  is  almost  sure 
to  win. 

ISTine  defeats  were  endured  by  Cambridge  with  a  for- 
titude, a  patience,  and  a  temper  that  won  every  heart, 
and  in  1870,  she  reaped  her  reward.  She  sent  up  a 
crew,  led  by  Mr.  Goldie  —  who  had  been  defeated  the 
year  before  by  Darbishire's  Oxford  eight  -^  and  coached 
by  Mr.  Morrison.  This  Cambridge  crew  pulled  the  Ox- 
ford stroke,  or  nearly,  drove  Oxford  in  the  race  to  a 
faster  stroke  that  does  not  suit  her,  and  won  the  race 
with  something  to  spare,  though  stuck  to  indomitably  by 
Darbishire  and  an  inferior  crew.  In  1871  Oxford  sent 
up  a  heavy  crew,  with  plenty  of  apparent  strength,  but 
not  the  precision  and  form  of  Mr.  Goldie's  eight.  Cam- 
bridge took  the  lead  and  kept  it. 

This  year  Oxford  was  rather  unlucky  in  advance. 
The  city  was  circumnavigable  by  little  ships,  and  you 
might  have  tacked  an  Indiaman  in  Magdalen  College 
meadow;  but  this  was  unfavourable  to  eight-oar  prac- 
tice. Then  Mr.  Lesley,  the  stroke,  sprained  his  side, 
and  resigned  his  post  to  Mr.  Houblon  a  very  elegant 
oarsman,  but  one  who  pulls  a  quick  stroke,  not  healthy 
to  Oxford  on  Father  Thames  his  bosom.  Then  their 
boat  was  found  to  be  not  so  lively  as  the  Cambridge  boat 
built  by  Clasper.  A  new  boat  was  ordered,  and  she 
proved  worse  in  another  way  than  Salter's.  In  a  word 
Oxford  came  to  the  scratch  to-day  with  a  good  stiff  boat, 
not  lively,  with  201b.  more  dead  weight  inside  the  cox- 


l>2  READIANA. 

swain's  jacket,  and  with  a  vast  deal  of  pluck  and  not  a 
little  Hemiplegia.  The  betting  was  live  to  two  against 
her. 

Five  minutes  before  the  rivals  came  out  it  was  snow- 
ing so  hard  that  the  race  bade  fair  to  be  invisible.  I 
shall  not  describe  the  snow,  nor  any  of  the  atmospheric 
horrors  that  made  the  whole  business  purgatory  instead 
of  pleasure.  I  take  a  milder  revenge ;  I  only  curse 
them. 

Putney  roared ;  and  out  came  the  Dark  Blue  crew ; 
they  looked  strong  and  wiry,  and  likely  to  be  trouble- 
some attendants.  Another  roar,  and  out  came  the  Light 
Blue.  So  long  as  the  boats  were  stationary  one  looked 
as  likely  as  the  other  to  win. 

They  started.  Houblon  took  it  rather  easy  at  first ; 
and  Cambridge  obtained  a  lead  directly,  and  at  the  Soap 
Works  was  half  a  length  ahead.  This  was  reduced  by 
Mr.  Hall's  excellent  steering  a  foot  or  two  by  the  time 
they  shot  Hammersmith  Bridge.  As  the  boats  neared 
Chiswick  Eyot,  where  many  a  race  has  changed,  Oxford 
gradually  reduced  the  lead  to  a  foot  or  two ;  and  if 
this  could  have  been  done  with  the  old,  steady,  much- 
enduring  stroke,  I  would  not  have  given  much  for  the 
leading  boat's  chance.  But  it  was  achieved  by  a  stroke 
of  full  thirty-nine  to  the  minute,  and  neither  form  nor 
time  was  perfect.  Mr.  Goldie  now  called  upon  his  crew, 
and  the  Clasper  boat  showed  great  qualities  ;  it  shot 
away  visibly,  like  a  horse  suddenly  spurred ;  this  spurt 
proved  that  Caml)ridge  had  great  reserves  of  force,  and 
Oxford  had  very  little.  Houblon  and  his  gallant  men  strug- 
gled nobly  and  unflinchingly  on;  but  between  Barnes 
Bridge  and  Mortlake  Goldie  put  the  steam  on  again,  and 
increased  the  lead  to  about  a  length  and  a  half  clear  water. 


THE   STORY    OF   THE   BOAT   RACE   OF   1872.      93 

The  gun  was  fired  and  Cambridge  won  the  race 
of  1872. 

In  this  race  Oxford,  contrary  to  her  best  traditions, 
pulled  a  faster  stroke  than  Cambridge  ;  the  Oxford  cox- 
swain's experience  compensated  for  his  greater  weight. 
The  lighter  coxswain  steered  his  boat  in  and  out  a  bit, 
and  will  run  some  risk  of  being  severely  criticised  by  all 
our  great  contemporaries  —  except  Zig-Zag.  As  for  me, 
my  fifty  summers  or  fifty  winters  —  there  is  no  great 
difference  in  this  island  of  the  blessed,  they  are  neither 
of  them  so  horrible  as  the  spring  —  have  disinclined  me 
to  thunder  on  the  young.  A  veteran  journalist  perched 
on  the  poop  of  a  steam  vessel  has  many  advantages.  He 
has  a  bird's  eye  view  of  the  Thames,  and  can  steer  Clas- 
per's  boat  with  his  mind  far  more  easily  than  can 
a  youngster  squatted  four  inches  above  the  water,  with 
eight  giants  intercepting  his  view  of  a  strange  river, 
and  a  mob  shouting  in  his  ears  like  all  the  wild  beasts  of 
a  thousand  forests. 

Mr.  Goldie  has  done  all  his  work  well  for  months. 
He  chose  his  men  impartiall}",  practised  them  in  time, 
and  finally  rowed  the  race  with  perfect  judgment.  He 
took  an  experimental  time,  and  finding  he  could  hold  it, 
made  no  premature  call  upon  his  crew.  He  held  the 
race  in  hand,  and  won  it  from  a  plucky  opponent  with- 
out distressing  his  men  needlessly.  No  man  is  a  friend  of 
Oxford,  who  tells  her  to  overrate  accidents,  and  under- 
rate what  may  be  done  by  a  wise  President  before  ever 
the  boats  reach  Putney.  This  London  race  was  virtu- 
ally won  at  Cambridge.  Next  year  let  Oxford  choose 
her  men  from  no  favourite  schools  or  colleges,  lay  aside 
her  prejudice  against  Clasper,  and  give  him  a  trial ;  at 
all  events,  return  to  her  swinging  stroke^  and  practise 


94  READIANA. 

till  not  only  all  the  eight  bodies  go  like  one,  but  all 
the  eight  row-locks  ring  like  one ;  and  the  spirit  and 
bottom  that  enabled  her  to  hang  so  long  on  the  quarter 
of  a  first-rate  crew  in  a  first-rate  boat  will  be  apt  to  land 
her  a  winner  in  the  next  and  many  a  hard-fought  race. 

CHARLES  READE. 


tj' 


BUILDERS     BLUNDERS. 


BUILDEES'   BLUNDEES. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Pall  Mall  Gazette." 
FIEST   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  Amidst  the  din  of  arms  abroad  and  petty  poli- 
tics at  home,  have  you  a  corner  for  a  subject  less  excit- 
ing, but  very  important  to  Englishmen  ?  Then  let  me 
expose  that  great  blot  upon  the  English  intellect,  the 
thing  we  call  a  house,  especially  as  it  is  built  in  our 
streets,  rows,  and  squares. 

To  begin  at  the  bottom  —  the  drains  are  inside  and 
hidden ;  nobody  knows  their  course.  A  foul  smell  arises : 
it  has  to  be  groped  for,  and  haK  the  kitchen  and  scullery 
floors  taken  up  —  blunder  1.  Drains  ought  to  be  out- 
side :  and,  if  not,  their  course  be  marked,  with  the  grav- 
ing tool,  on  the  stones,  and  a  map  of  the  drains  deposited 
with  a  parish  officer ;  overlying  boards  and  stones  ought 
to  be  hinged,  to  facilitate  examination.  Things  capable 
of  derangement  should  never  be  inaccessible.  This  is 
common  sense ;  yet,  from  their  drains  to  their  chimney- 
pots, the  builders  defy  this  maxim. 

The  kitchen  windows  are  sashes,  and  all  sash-windows 
are  a  mistake.  They  are  small;  they  ought  to  be  as 
large  as  possible.  The  want  of  light  in  kitchens  is  one 
of  the  causes  why  female  servants  —  though  their  lot  is 
a  singularly  happy  one  —  are  singularly  irritable.  But, 
not  to  dwell  on  small  errors,  the  next  great  blunder  in 
the  kitchen  is  the  plaster  ceiling. 


9G  KEADJLVNA. 

The  plaster  ceiling  may  pass,  with  London  builders, 
for  a  venerable  anti(iuit3'  that  nothing  can  disturb,  but  to 
scholars  it  is  an  unhappy  novelty,  and,  in  its  present 
form,  inexcusable.  It  was  invented  in  a  tawdry  age  as 
a  vehicle  of  florid  ornamentation ;  but  what  excuse  can 
there  be  for  a  ^^Zai/i  plaster  ceiling  ?  Count  the  objec- 
tions to  it  in  a  kitchen.  1.  A  kitchen  is  a  low  room, 
and  the  ceiling  makes  it  nine  inches  lower.  2.  White  is 
a  glaring  colour,  and  a  white  ceiling  makes  a  low  room 
look  lower.  3.  This  kitchen  ceiling  is  dirty  in  a  month's 
wear,  and  filthy  in  three  months,  with  the  smoke  of  gas, 
and  it  is  a  thing  the  servants  cannot  clean.  4.  You  can- 
not hang  things  on  it. 

Now  change  all  this :  lay  out  the'  prime  cost  of  the 
ceiling,  and  a  small  part  of  its  yearly  cost,  in  finishing 
your  joists  and  boards  to  receive  varnish,  and  in  varnish- 
ing them  with  three  coats  of  good  copal.  Your  low  room 
is  now  nine  inches  higher,  and  looks  three  feet.  You 
can  put  in  hooks  and  staples  galore,  and  make  the  roof 
of  this  business-room  useful ;  it  is,  in  colour,  a  pale 
amber  at  starting,  which  is  better  for  the  human  eye 
than  white  glare,  and,  instead  of  getting  uglier  every 
day,  as  the  plaster  ceiling  does,  it  improves  every  month, 
every  year,  every  decade,  every  century.  Clean  deal, 
under  varnish,  acquires  in  a  few  years  a  beauty  oak  can 
never  attain  to.     So  much  for  the  kitchen. 

The  kitchen  stairs,  whether  of  stone  or  wood,  ought 
never  to  be  laid  down  without  a  protecting  nozzle.  The 
brass  nozzle  costs  some  money,  the  lead  nozzle  hardly 
any :  no  nozzle  can  be  dear ;  for  it  saves  the  steps,  and 
they  are  dearer.  See  how  the  kitchen  steps  are  cut  to 
pieces  for  want  of  that  little  bit  of  forethought  in  the 
builder. 


builders'  blunders.  97 

We  are  now  on  the  first  floor.  Over  our  heads  is  a 
blunder,  the  plaster  ceiling,  well  begrimed  with  the 
smoke  from  the  gaselier,  and  not  cleanable  by  the  ser- 
vants :  and  we  stand  upon  another  blunder ;  here  are  a 
set  of  boards,  not  joined  together.  They  are  nailed  down 
loose,  and  being  of  green  wood  they  gape  :  now  the  blun- 
der immediately  below,  the  plaster  ceiling  of  the  kitchen, 
has  provided  a  receptacle  of  dust  several  inches  deep. 
This  rises  when  you  walk  upon  the  floor,  rises  in  clouds 
when  your  children  run ;  and  that  dust  marks  your  car- 
pet in  black  lines,  and  destroys  it  before  its  time.  These 
same  boards  are  laid  down  without  varnish ;  by  this 
means  they  rot,  and  do  not  last  one-half,  nor,  indeed, 
one-quarter,  of  their  time.  Moreover,  the  unvarnished 
boards  get  filthy  at  the  sides  before  you  furnish,  and 
thus  you  lose  the  cleanest  and  most  beautiful  border  pos- 
sible to  your  carpet.  So  the  householder  is  driven  by 
the  incapacity  of  the  builder  to  pitiable  substitutes  — 
oil  cloth,  Indian  matting,  and  stained  wood,  which  last 
gets  uglier  every  year,  whereas  deal  boards  varnished 
clean  improve  every  year,  every  decade,  every  century. 

I  am.  Sir, 

Yours  very  truly, 

CHAELES   EEADE. 

SECOND   LETTEK. 

Sir,  —  When  last  seen  I  was  standing  on  the  first  floor 
of  the  thing  they  call  a  house,  with  a  blunder  under  my 
feet  —  unvarnished,  unjoined  boards ;  and  a  blunder  over 
my  head  —  the  oppressive,  glaring,  plaster  ceiling,  full 
of  its  inevitable  cracks,  and  foul  with  the  smoke  of  only 
three  months'  gas.     This  room  has  square  doors  with 


98  KEADIANA. 

lintels.  Now  all  doors  and  doorways  ought  to  be  arched, 
for  two  reasons  —  first,  the  arch  is  incombustible,  the 
lintel  and  breast-summer  are  combustible ;  secondly,  the 
arch,  and  arched  door,  are  beautiful ;  the  square  hole  in 
the  wall,  and  square  door,  are  hideous. 

Sash  Windows. 

This  room  is  lighted  by  what  may  be  defined  "the 
unscientific  window."  Here  in  this  single  structure  you 
may  see  most  of  the  intellectual  vices  that  mark  the  un- 
scientific mind.  The  scientific  way  is  always  the  simple 
way ;  so  here  you  have  complication  on  complication : 
one  half  the  window  is  to  go  up,  the  other  half  is  to 
come  down.  The  maker  of  it  goes  out  of  his  way  to 
struggle  with  Nature's  laws :  he  grapples  insanely  with 
gravitation,  and  therefore  he  must  use  cords,  and  weights, 
and  pulleys,  and  build  boxes  to  hide  them  in  —  he  is  a 
great  hider.  His  wooden  frames  move  up  and  down 
wooden  grooves  open  to  atmospheric  influence.  What  is 
the  consequence  ?  The  atmosphere  becomes  humid  ;  the 
wooden  frame  sticks  in  the  wooden  box,  and  the  unscien- 
tific window  is  jammed.  What  ho  !  Send  for  the  curse 
OF  FAMILIES,  the  British  workman  !  Or  one  of  the  cords 
breaks  (they  are  alwa3'S  breaking)  —  send  for  the  curse 
OF  FAMILIES  to  patch  tlic  bluudcr  of  the  unscientific 
builder. 

Now  turn  to  the  scientific  window ;  it  is  simply  a  glass 
door  with  a  wooden  frame ;  it  is  not  at  the  mercy  of  the 
atmosphere ;  it  enters  into  no  contest  with  gravitation ; 
it  is  the  one  rational  window  upon  earth.  If  a  small 
window,  it  is  a  single  glass  door,  if  a  large  window,  it  is 
two  glass  doors,  each  calmly  turning  on  three  hinges, 


builders'  bluxdees.  99 

and  not  fighting  against  God  Almighty  and  his  laws, 
when  there  is  no  need. 

The  scientific  window  can  be  cleaned  by  the  house- 
holder's servants  without  difficulty  or  danger,  not  so  the 
unscientific  window. 

How  many  a  poor  girl  has  owed  broken  bones  to  the 
sash-window!  Now-a-days  humane  masters,  afflicted 
with  unscientific  windows,  send  for  the  curse  of 
FAMILIES  whenever  their  windows  are  dirty ;  but  this 
costs  seven  or  eight  pounds  a  year,  and  the  householder 
is  crushed  under  taxes  enough  without  having  to  pay 
this  odd  seven  pounds  per  annum  for  the  nescience  of 
the  builder. 

We  go  up  the  stairs  —  between  two  blunders  :  the  bal- 
usters are  painted  whereas  they  ought  to  be  made  and 
varnished  in  the  carpenter's  shop,  and  then  put  up ;  var- 
nished wood  improves  with  time,  painted  deteriorates. 
On  the  other  side  is  the  domestic  calamity,  foul  wear, 
invariable,  yet  never  provided  for ;  furniture  mounting 
the  narrow  stairs  dents  the  wall  and  scratches  it ;  sloppy 
housemaids  paw  it  as  they  pass,  and  their  dirty  gowns, 
distended  by  crinoline,  defile  it. 

What  is  to  be  done  then  ?  must  the  whole  staircase  be 
repainted  every  year,  because  five  feet  of  it  get  dirty,  or 
shall  brains  step  in  and  protect  the  vulnerable  part  ? 

The  cure  to  this  curse  is  chunam ;  or  encaustic  tiles, 
set  five  feet  high  all  up  the  stairs.  That  costs  money ! 
Granted ;  but  the  life  of  a  house  is  not  the  life  of  a  but- 
terfly. Even  the  tiles  are  a  cheap  cure,  for  repeated 
paintings  of  the  whole  surface  mighty  soon  balance  the 
prime  cost  of  the  tiles  set  over  a  small  part. 

The  water-closet  has  no  fire-place.  That  is  a  blunder. 
Every  year  we  have  a  few  days'  hard  frost,  and  then, 


100  READIANA. 

.without  a  fire  in  tlie  water-closet,  the  water  in  the  pan 
freezes,  the  machinery  is  jammed,  and  the  whole  family 
endure  a  degree  of  discomfort,  and  even  of  degradation, 
because  the  builder  builds  in  summer  and  forgets  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  winter. 

The  drawing-room  presents  no  new  feature ;  but  the 
plaster  ceiling  is  particularly  objectionable  in  this  room, 
because  it  is  under  the  bedrooms,  where  water  is  used 
freely.  Now  if  a  man  spills  but  a  pint  of  water  in  wash- 
ing or  bathing,  it  runs  through  directly  and  defiles  the 
drawing-room  ceiling.  Perhaps  this  blunder  ought  to  be 
equally  divided  between  the  ceiling  and  the  floor  above, 
for  whenever  bedroom  floors  shall  be  properly  constructed 
they  will  admit  of  buckets  of  water  being  sluiced  all 
over  them ;  and,  indeed,  will  be  so  treated,  and  washed 
as  courageously  as  are  sculleries  and  kitchens  only  under 
the  present  benighted  system. 

I  pass  over  the  third  floor,  and  mount  a  wooden  stair- 
case, a  terrible  blunder  in  this  part  of  the  house,  to  the 
rooms  under  the  roof.  These  rooms,  if  the  roof  was 
open-timbered,  would  give  each  inmate  a  great  many 
cubic  feet  of  air  to  breathe ;  so  the  perverse  builder 
erects  a  plaster  ceiling,  and  reduces  him  to  a  very  few 
cubic  feet  of  air.  This,  the  maddest  of  all  the  ceilings, 
serves  two  characteristic  purposes ;  it  chokes  and  op- 
presses the  poor  devils  that  live  under  it,  and  it  hides 
the  roof ;  now  the  roof  is  the  part  that  of tenest  needs 
repairs,  so  it  ought  to  be  the  most  accessible  part  of  the 
house,  and  the  easiest  to  examine  from  the  outside  and 
from  the  inside.  For  this  very  reason  Perversity  in 
person  hides  it ;  whenever  your  roof  or  a  gutter  leaks, 
it  is  all  groping  and  speculation,  because  your  builder 
has  concealed  the  inside  of  the  roof  with  that  wretched 


builders'    BL\7NDI^2Si  j  01 

ceiling,  and  has  made  the  outside  accessible  only  to  cats 
and  sparrows,  and  the  "curse  of  families."  N.B. — 
Whenever  that  curse  of  families  goes  out  on  that  roof 
to  mend  one  hole,  he  makes  two.  Why  not  ?  thanks  to 
the  perverse  builder  you  can't  watch  him,  and  he  has  got 
a  friend  a  pluinher. 

We  now  rise  from  folly  to  lunacy ;  the  roof  is  half 
perpendicular.  This,  in  a  modern  house,  is  not  merely 
silly,  it  is  disgraceful  to  the  human  mind;  it  was  all 
very  well  before  gutters  and  pipes  were  invented :  it  was 
well  designed  to  shoot  off  the  water  by  the  overlapping 
eaves :  but  now  we  run  our  water  off  by  our  gutters  and 
pipes,  and  the  roof  merely  feeds  them ;  the  steep  roof 
feeds  them  too  fast,  and  is  a  main  cause  of  overflows. 
But  there  are  many  other  objections  to  slanted  roofs, 
especially  in  streets  and  rows : 

1st.  The  pyramidal  roof,  by  blocking  up  the  air,  neces- 
sitates high  stacks  of  chimneys,  which  are  expensive 
and  dangerous. 

2nd.  The  pyramidal  roof  presses  laterally  against  the 
walls,  which  these  precious  builders  make  thinner  the 
higher  they  raise  them,  and  subjects  the  whole  structure 
to  danger. 

3rd.  It  robs  the  family  of  a  whole  floor,  and  gives  it 
to  cats  and  sparrows.  I  say  that  a  five-story  house  with 
a  pyramidal  roof  is  a  five-story  house,  and  with  a  flat 
roof  is  a  six-story  house. 

4th.  It  robs  the  poor  cockney  of  his  country  view. 
It  is  astonishing  how  much  of  the  country  can  be  seen 
from  the  roofs  of  most  London  streets.  A  poor  fellow 
who  works  all  day  in  a  hole,  might  smoke  his  evening 
pipe,  and  see  a  wide  tract  of  verdure  —  but  the  builders 
have  denied  him  that  j  they  build  the  roof  for  cats,  and 


102  READIANA. 

the  "  curse  of  families,"  they  do  not  build  it  for  the  man 
whose  bread  they  eat. 

5th.   It  robs  poor  families  of  their  drying-ground. 

6th.  This  idiotic  blunder,  slightly  aided  by  a  sub- 
sidiary blunder  or  two,  murders  householders  and  their 
families  wholesale,  destroys  them  by  the  most  terrible 
of  all  deaths  —  burning  alive. 

And  I  seriously  ask  you,  and  any  member  of  either 
House,  who  is  not  besotted  with  little  noisy  things,  to 
consider  how  great  a  matter  this  is,  though  no  political 
squabble  can  be  raised  about  it. 

Mind  you,  the  builders  are  not  to  blame  that  a  small, 
high  house  is,  in  its  nature  a  fire  trap.  This  is  a  misfor- 
tune inseparable  from  the  shape  of  the  structure  and  the 
nature  of  that  terrible  element.  The  crime  of  the  build- 
ers lies  in  this,  that  they  make  no  intelligent  provision 
against  a  danger  so  evident,  but  side  with  the  fire  not 
the  family. 

Prejudice  and  habitual  idiocy  apart,  can  anything  be 
clearer  than  this,  that,  as  fire  mounts  and  smoke  stifles, 
all  persons  ivho  are  above  a  fire  ought  to  be  enabled  to 
leave  the  house  by  way  of  the  roof,  as  easily  and  rapidly 
as  those  below  the  fire  can  go  out  by  the  street  door. 

Now  what  do  the  builders  do  ?  They  side  with  fire  ; 
they  accumulate  combustible  materials  on  the  upper 
floors,  and  they  construct  a  steep  roof  most  difficult  and 
dangerous  to  get  about  on,  but  to  the  aged  and  infirm 
impossible.  Are  then  the  aged  and  infirm  incombusti- 
ble ?  This  horrible  dangerous  roof  the  merciless  wretches 
make  so  hard  of  access  that  few  are  the  cases,  as  well 
they  know  by  the  papers,  in  which  a  life  is  saved  by 
their  hard  road.  They  open  a  little  trap-door  —  hori- 
zontal, of  course ;  always  go  against  God  Almighty  and 


builders'  blunders.  103 

his  laws,  when  you  can ;  that  is  the  idiot's  creed.  This 
miserable  aperture,  scarcely  big  enough  for  a  dog,  is 
bolted  or  padlocked.  It  is  seven  feet  from  the  ground. 
Yet  the  builder  fixes  no  steps  nor  stairs  to  it ;  no,  get  at 
it  how  you  can.  What  chance  has  a  mixed  family  of 
escaping  by  this  hole  in  case  of  fire.  Nobody  ever  goes 
on  that  beastly  pyramid  except  in  case  of  fire ;  and  so 
the  bolt  is  almost  sure  to  be  rusty,  or  the  key  mislaid,  or 
the  steps  not  close ;  and,  even  if  the  poor  wretches  get 
the  steps  to  the  place,  and  heave  open  the  trap,  in  spite 
of  rust  and  gravitation,  these  delays  are  serious  ;  then  the 
whole  family  is  to  be  dragged  up  through  a  dog-hole,  and 
that  is  slow  work,  and  fire  is  swift  and  smoke  is  stifling. 

A  thousand  poor  wretches  have  been  clean  murdered 
in  my  time  by  the  builders  with  their  trap-door  and 
their  pyramidal  roof.  Thousands  more  have  been  de- 
stroyed, as  far  as  the  builders  were  concerned ;  the  fire- 
men and  fire-escape  men  saved  them,  in  spite  of  the 
builders,  by  means  which  were  a  disgrace  to  the  builders. 

But  in  my  next.  Sir,  I  will  show  you  that  in  a  row  of 
houses  constructed  by  brains  not  one  of  those  tragedies 
could  ever  have  taken  place.  — 

I  am,  Sir, 

Yours  very  truly, 

CHAELES   EEADE. 


THIRD   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  It  is  a  sure  sign  a  man  is  not  an  artist,  if,  in- 
stead of  repairing  his  defects,  he  calls  in  an  intellectual 
superior  to  counteract  them.  The  fire-escape  is  credit- 
able to  its  inventor,  but   disgraceful   to   the   builders. 


1 04  READIANA. 

They  oonstniot  a  fire-trap  witnout  an  escape ;  and  so 
their  fellow-citizens  are  to  cudgel  their  brains  and  sup- 
ply the  builders'  want  of  intelligence  and  humanity  by 
an  invention  working  from  the  street.  The  fire-escape 
can  after  all  save  but  a  few  of  the  builders'  victims. 
The  only  universal  fire-escape  is  —  The  rational  roof. 

To  be  constructed  thus  :  Light  iron  staircases  from 
the  third  floor  to  top  floor  and  rational  roof.  Flat  roof, 
or  roofs,  metal  covered,  with  scarcely  perceptible  fall 
from  centre.  Open  joists  and  iron  girders,  the  latter 
sufiiciently  numerous  to  keep  the  roof  from  falling  in, 
even  though  fire  should  gut  the  edifice.  An  iron-lined 
door,  surmounted  by  a  sky -light ;  iron  stair-case  up  to 
this  door,  which  opens  rationally  on  to  the  rational  roof. 
Large  cistern  or  tank  on  roof  with  a  force-pump  to  irri- 
gate the  roof  in  fire  or  summer  lieats.  Eound  the  roof 
iron  rails  set  firm  in  balcony,  made  too  hard  for  bairns 
to  climb,  and  surmounted  by  spikes.  Between  every 
two  houses  a  partition  gate  with  two  locks  and  keys 
complete.  Bell  under  cover  to  call  neighbour  in  fire  or 
other  emergency. 

Advantages  offered  by  "  the  rational  roof:  "  — 

1.  High  chimney  stacks  not  needed. 

2.  Nine  smoking  chimneys  cured  out  of  ten.  There 
are  always  people  at  hand  to  make  the  householder  be- 
lieve his  chimney  smokes  by  some  fault  of  construction, 
and  so  they  gull  him  into  expenses,  and  his  chimney 
smokes  on  —  because  it  is  not  thoroughly  swept.  Send 
a  faithful  servant  on  to  the  rational  roof,  let  him  see  the 
chimney-sweep's  brush  at  the  top  of  every  chimney  before 
you  pay  a  shilling,  and  good-bye  smoking  chimneys. 
Sweeps  are  rogues,  and  the  irrational  roof  is  their  shield 
and  buckler. 


builders'  blunders.  105 

3.  The  rails  painted  chocolate  and  the  spikes  gilt 
would  mightily  improve  our  gloomy  streets. 

4.  Stretch  clothes'  lines  from  spike  to  spike,  and  there 
is  a  drying-ground  for  the  poor,  or  for  such  substantial 
people  as  are  sick  of  the  washerwomen  and  their  villany. 
These  heartless  knaves  are  now  rotting  fine  cambric  and 
lace  with  soda  and  chloride  of  lime,  though  borax  is 
nearly  as  detergent  and  injures  nothing. 

5.  A  playground  in  a  purer  air  for  children  that  can- 
not get  to  the  parks.    There  is  no  ceiling  to  crack  below. 

6.  In  summer  heats  a  blest  retreat.  Irrigate  and  cool 
from  the  cistern  :  then  set  four  converging  poles,  stretch 
over  these  from  spike  to  spike  a  few  breadths  of  awn- 
ing ;  and  there  is  a  delightful  tent  and  perhaps  a  country 
view.  If  the  Star  and  Garter  at  Eichmond  had  pos- 
sessed such  a  roof,  they  would  have  made  at  least  two 
thousand  a  year  upon  it,  and  perhaps  have  saved  their 
manager  from  a  terrible  death. 

7.  On  each  roof  a  little  flagstaff  and  streamer  to  light 
the  gloom  with  sparks  of  colour,  and  tell  the  world  is 
the  master  at  home  or  not.  This  would  be  of  little  use 
now  ;  but,  when  once  the  rational  roof  becomes  common, 
many  a  friend  could  learn  from  his  own  roof  whether  a 
friend  was  at  home,  and  so  men's  eyes  might  save  their 
legs. 

8.  In  case  of  fire,  the  young  and  old  would  walk  out 
by  a  rational  door  on  to  a  rational  roof,  and  ring  at  a 
rational  gate.  Then  their  neighbour  lets  them  on  to  his 
rational  roof,  and  they  are  safe.  Meantime,  the  adult 
males,  if  any,  have  time  to  throw  wet  blankets  on  the 
skylight  and  turn  the  water  on  to  the  roof.  The  rational 
roof,  after  saving  the  family  which  its  predecessor  would 
have  destroyed,  now  proceeds   to  combat  the  fire.     It 


106  READTANA. 

operates  as  an  obstinate  cowl  over  the  fire ;  and,  if  there 
are  engines  on  the  spot,  the  victory  is  certain.  Compare 
this  with  the  whole  conduct  of  the  irrational  roof.  First 
it  murdered  the  inmates  ;  then  it  fed  the  fire ;  then  it 
collapsed  and  fell  on  the  ground  floor,  destroying  more 
property,  and  endangering  the  firemen.  — 
I  am, 

Yours  very  truly, 

CHAELES   EEADE. 

FOURTH   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  The  shoe  pinches  all  men  more  or  less ;  but, 
on  a  calm  survey,  I  think  it  pinches  the  householder 
hardest. 

A  house  is  as  much  a  necessary  of  life  as  a  loaf ;  yet 
this  article  of  necessity  has  been*  lately  raised  to  a  fancy 
price  by  the  trade  conspiracies  of  the  building  operatives 
—  not  so  much  by  their  legitimate  strikes  for  high  wages 
as  by  their  conspiring  never  to  do  for  any  amount  of 
wages  an  honest  day's  work  —  and  the  fancy  price  thus 
created  strikes  the  householder  first  in  the  form  of  rent. 
But  this  excessive  rent,  although  it  is  an  outgoing,  is  taxed 
as  income ;  its  figure  is  made  the  basis  of  all  the  impe- 
rial and  parochial  exactions,  that  crush  the  householder. 
One  of  these  is  singularly  unfair  ;  I  mean  "  the  inhabited 
house  duty."  What  is  this  but  the  property  tax  rebap- 
tized  and  levied  over  again,  but  from  the  wrong  person  ? 
the  property  tax  is  a  percentage  on  the  rent,  levied  in 
good  faith,  from  the  person  whom  the  rent  enables  to  pay 
that  percentage  ;  but  the  inhabited  house  duty  is  a  similar 
percentage  on  the  rent,  levied,  under  the  disguise  of  an- 
other name,  from  him  whom  the  rent  disables. 


builders'  blunders.  107 

In  London  the  householder  constantly  builds  and  im- 
proves the  freehold :  instantly  parochial  spies  raise  his 
rates.  He  has  employed  labour,  and  so  far  counterbal- 
anced pauperism ;  at  the  end  of  his  lease  the  house  will 
bear  a  heavier  burden ;  but  these  heartless  extortioners 
they  bleed  the  poor  wretch  directly  for  improving  paro- 
chial property  at  his  own  expense.  At  the  end  of  his 
lease  the  rent  is  raised  by  the  landlord  on  account  of 
these  taxed  improvements,  and  the  tenant  turned  out 
with  a  heavier  grievance  than  the  Irish  farmer ;  yet  he 
does  not  tumble  his  landlord,  nor  even  a  brace  of  vestry- 
men. The  improving  tenant,  while  awaiting  the  punish- 
ment of  virtue,  spends  twenty  times  as  much  money  in 
pipes  as  the  water  companies  do,  yet  he  has  to  pay  them 
for  water  a  price  so  enormous,  that  they  ought  to  bring 
it  into  his  cisterns,  and  indeed  into  his  mouth,  for  the 
money. 

He  pays  through  the  nose  for  gas. 

He  bleeds  for  the  vices  of  the  working  classes;  since 
in  our  wealthy  cities,  nine-tenths  of  the  pauperism  is 
simply  waste  and  inebriety.  He  often  pays  temporary 
relief  to  an  improvident  workman,  whose  annual  income 
exceeds  his  own,  but  who  will  never  put  by  a  shilling 
for  a  slack  time. 

In  short,  the  respectable  householder  of  moderate 
means  is  so  ground  down  and  oppressed  that,  to  my 
knowledge,  he  is  on  the  road  to  despondency  and  ripen- 
ing for  a  revolution. 

jN'ow,  I  can  hold  him  out  no  hope  of  relief  from  exist- 
ing taxation  ;  but  his  intolerable  burden  can  be  lightened 
by  other  means ;  the  simplest  is  to  keep  do^vn  his  bill 
for  repairs  and  decorations,  which  at  present  is  made 
monstrous  by  original  misconstruction. 


108  READIANA. 

The  irrational  house  is  an  animal  with  its  mouth 

ALWAYS  OPEN. 

This  need  not  be.  It  arises  from  causes  most  of  which 
are  removable ;  viz.,  1st,  from  unscientific  construction ; 
2n(l,  plaster  ceilings ;  3rcl,  the  want  of  provision  for  par- 
tial wear ;  4th,  the  abuse  of  paint ;  5th,  hidden  work. 

Under  all  these  heads  I  have  already  given  examples. 
I  will  add  another  under  head  3.  The  dado  or  skirting 
board  is  to  keep  furniture  from  marking  the  wall;  but 
it  is  laid  down  only  one  inch  thick,  whereas  the  top  of 
a  modern  chair  overlaps  the  bottom  an  inch  and  a  half. 
This  the  builders  do  not,  or  will  not,  observe,  and  so 
every  year  in  London  fifty  thousand  rooms  are  spoiled 
by  the  marks  of  chair-backs  on  the  walls,  and  the  owners 
driven  to  the  expense  of  painting  or  papering  sixty  square 
yards,  to  clean  a  space  that  is  less  than  a  square  foot, 
but  fatal  to  the  appearance  of  the  room. 

Under  head  4  let  me  observe  that  God's  woods  are  all 
very  beautiful ;  that  only  fools  are  wiser  than  God 
Almighty  ;  that  varnish  shows  up  the  beauty  of  those 
Avoods,  and  adds  a  gloss  ;  and  that  house-paint  hides  their 
beauty.  Paint  holds  dirt,  and  does  not  wash  well ;  var- 
nish does.  Paint  can  only  be  mixed  by  a  workman. 
Varnish  is  sold  fit  to  put  on.  Paint  soon  requires  re- 
vival, and  the  old  paint  must  be  rubbed  off  at  a  great 
expense,  and  two  new  coats  put  on.  Varnish  stands  good 
for  years,  and,  when  it  requires  revival,  little  more  is 
necessary  than  simple  cleaning,  and  one  fresh  coat,  which 
a  servant  or  anybody  can  lay  on.  5.  Hidden  work  is 
sure  to  be  bad  work,  and  so  need  repairs,  especially  in  a 
roof,  that  sore  tried  part ;  and  the  repairs  are  the  more 
expensive  that  the  weak  place  has  to  be  groped  for. 

I  have  now,  I  trust,  said  enough  to  awaken  a  few 


BUILDEES'    BLUNDERS.  109 

householders  from  the  lethargy  of  despair,  and  to  set 
them  thinking  a  little  and  organizing  a  defence  against 
the  extraordinary  mixture  of  stupidity  and  low  instinc- 
tive trade  cunning  of  which  they  are  the  victims :  for  a 
gentleman's  blunders  hurt  himself,  but  a  tradesman's 
blunders  always  hurt  his  customers ;  and  this  is  singu- 
larly true  of  builders'  blunders ;  they  all  tend  one  way 
—  to  compel  the  householder  to  be  always  sending  for 
the  builder,  or  that  bungling  rascal  the  plumber,  to  grope 
for  his  hidden  work,  or  botch  his  bad  work,  or  clean  his 
unscientific  windows,  or  whitewash  his  idiotic  ceilings, 
or  rub  his  nasty  unguents  off  God's  beautiful  wood,  and 
then  put  some  more  nasty  odoriferous  unguents  on,  or 
put  cowls  on  his  ill-cleaned  chimneys ;  or,  in  short,  to 
repair  his  own  countless  blunders  at  the  expense  of  his 
customer. 

Independently  of  the  murderous  and  constant  expense, 
the  bare  entrance  into  a  modest  household  of  that  loose, 
lazy,  drunken,  dishonest  drink-man  and  jack-man,  who 
has  the  impudence  to  call  himself  "the  British  work- 
man," though  he  never  did  half  a  day's  real  work  at  a 
stretch  in  all  his  life,  is  a  serious  calamity,  to  be  averted 
by  every  lawful  means. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHAKLES  EEADE. 


110  EEADIANA. 


WHO  IS  HE? 

To  THE  Editor  op  the  "  Daily  News." 

Sir,  —  Your  correspondent  "  Facing  both.  Ways,"  com- 
plains that  a  trial,  which  lasted  101  days,  has  only 
revealed  to  him  that  the  Tichborne  Claimant  is  not  Tich- 
borne ;  who  the  man  really  is  remains  obscure.  I  think, 
sir,  your  correspondent  makes  his  own  difficulty ;  he  over- 
rates direct  evidence,  though  this  very  trial  has  shown 
its  extreme  fallibility,  and  underrates  circumstantial 
evidence.  This  is  an  illusion;  circumstantial  evidence 
avails  to  convict  a  man  of  a  murder  no  human  eye  has 
witnessed ;  and  a  fortiori  it  avails  to  identify  a  pseudo- 
Tichborne  with  the  man  he  really  is.  The  proof  of  his 
identity  lies  in  a  number  of  circumstances,  heterogene- 
ous, and  independent  of  each  other,  yet  all  pointing  to 
one  conclusion,  and  all  undeniable,  and  indeed  not  de- 
nied. Now  it  is  a  property  of  such  coincidences,  that, 
Avhen  they  multiply,  the  proof  rises,  not  on  a  scale  of 
simple  addition,  but  in  a  ratio  so  enormous  that  at  the 
sixth  coincidence  we  get  to  figures  the  tongue  may  utter, 
but  the  mind  cannot  realize.  In  cases  of  murder  I  have 
never  known  a  treble  coincidence,  pointing  to  one  man 
as  the  murderer,  fail  to  result  in  a  conviction.  But  in 
the  Tichborne  case  the  barefaced  coincidences,  all  point- 
ing to  the  Tichborne  Claimant  as  Arthur  Orton,  are  not 
less  than  seven ;  and  to  these  you  may  add  one  of  super- 
lative  importance,    viz.,  the    coincidence   of   character. 


WHO   IS   HE? 


Ill 


Character  is  the  key  to  men's  actions,  and  it  is  clear  that 
Arthur  Orton,  when  quite  a  youth,  was  instinctively  in- 
clined towards  an  imposture  of  the  same  kind,  though 
not  the  same  degree,  that  a  jury  has  fixed  upon  the  Tich- 
borne  Claimant.     This  youth,  though  "  Begot  by  butch- 
ers, and  by  butchers  bred,"  did  yet  hold  his  haughty 
head  high  out  in  Brazil,  and  boasted  of  some  lofty  origin 
or  other.     If  your  correspondent  mil  only  take  a  sheet 
of  paper  and  write  doAvn,  in  separate  paragraphs,  all  the 
undisputed  coincidences,  and  then  add  the  coincidence 
of  character,  and  then  add  to  that  the  circumstance  that 
no  other  Arthur  Orton  could  be   found  to  go  into  the 
witness-box  and  say,  "  I  am  Arthur  Orton,"  though  those 
four  words  would  have  been  worth  fifty  thousand  pounds 
to  the  Claimant  and  his  bondholders,  he  will  see  before 
him  such  an  array  of  heterogeneous  proofs,  all  radiating 
to  one  centre,  as  no  recorded  trial  ever  elicited  before. 
Now,  the  naturalists  have  laid  down  a  maxim  of  reason- 
ing in  such  cases  which  every  lawyer  in  England  would 
do  well  to  copy  into  his  note-book  :  —  "  The  true  solution 
is  that  which  reconciles  all  the  indisputable  facts."     Ap- 
ply this  test  to  the  theories  that  the  Claimant  is  Castro, 
is  Doolan,  is  Morgan ;  those  theories  all  dissolve  before 
that  immortal  piece  of  wisdom  like  hailstones  before  the 
midsummer  sun.     In  the  same  way  —  to  use  a  favourite 
form  in  Euclid  —  it  can  be  proved  that  no  other  person 
except  Arthur  Orton  is  the  Tichborne  Claimant.     Is  this 
uncertainty?     AVhat,  then,   of  all  we  believe  —  either 
human  or  divine  —  is  certain  ?  — 

I  am.  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

Albert  Terrace,  Knightsbridge,         CHARLES   READE. 
March  18,  1872. 


112  READIANA. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   COINCIDENCES. 

To  THE  Editor  of  "Fact." 
FIKST   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  In  reply  to  your  query  —  it  is  true  that 
after  the  trial  at  Nisi  Prius,  where  "  the  Claimant "  was 
Plaintiff,  but  before  his  trial  at  Bar  as  Defendant, 
I  pronounced  him  to  be  Arthur  Orton,  and  gave  my 
reasons. 

These  you  now  invite  me  to  repeat.  I  will  do  so  ;  only 
let  me  premise  that  I  am  not  so  vain  as  to  think  I  can 
say  anything  essentially  new  on  this  subject,  which  has 
been  fully  discussed  by  men  superior  to  me  in  attain- 
ments. 

It  so  happens,  however,  that  those  superior  men  have 
always  veiled  a  part  of  their  own  mental  process,  though 
it  led  them  to  a  just  conclusion:  they  have  never  stated 
in  direct  terms  their  major  premise,  or  leading  principle. 
This  is  a  common  omission,  especially  amongst  Anglo- 
Saxon  reasoners ;  but  it  is  a  positive  defect,  and  one  I  do 
think  I  can  supply.  But  before  we  come  to  the  debate- 
able  matter,  I  fear  I  must  waste  a  few  words  on  the 
impossible  —  namely,  that  this  man  is  Roger  Charles 
Tichborne. 

Well,  then,  let  those,  who  have  not  studied  the  evi- 
dence and  cross-examination,  just  cast  their  eyes  on  this 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   COINCIDENCES.  113 

paper  and  see  a  sample  of  what  tliey  must  believe,  or 
else  reject  that  chimera. 

That  Roger  Tichborne  was  drowned  with  thirty  more, 
yet  reappeared  years  after,  all  alone,  leaving  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  sea  all  his  companions,  and  certain  miscella- 
neous articles,  viz. :  — 

1.  His  affection  for  his  mother,  his  brother,  and  others. 

2.  His  handwriting. 

3.  His  leanness. 

4.  His  French. 

5.  His  love  of  writing  letters  to  his  folk. 

6.  His  knowledge  of  Chateaubriand,  and  his  compre- 
hension of  what  the  deuce  he,  Roger  Tichborne,  was 
writing  about  when  he  put  upon  paper  —  before  his  sub- 
mersion —  that  he  admired  Rene,  and  gave  his  reasons. 

7.  His  knowledge  of  the  Tichborne  estates,  and  the 
counties  they  lay  in. 

8.  His  knowledge  of  his  mother's  Christian  names. 

9.  His  knowledge  of  his  beloved  sweetheart's  face, 
figure,  and  voice. 

10.  His  tattoo  marks,  thi-ee  inches  long. 

11.  His  religion. 

12.  Five  years  of  his  life.  These  five  years  lay  full 
fathom  five  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean  hard  by  No.  10, 
when  this  aristocratic  Papist  married  a  servant  girl  in  a 
Baptist  chapel,  and  was  only  thirty  years  old,  as  appears 
on  the  register  in  his  handwriting,  which  is  nothing  like 
Tichborne's.  Along  with  this  rubbish  we  may  as  well 
sweep  away  the  last  invention  of  weak  and  wavering 
intellects,  that  the  Claimant  is  no  individual  in  particu- 
lar, but  a  sort  of  solidified  myth,  incarnate  alias,  or  obese 
hallucination. 

And  now  having  applied  our  besoms  to  the  bosh,  let 


114  READIANA. 

us  apply  our  minds  to  the  debateable.  Since  he  is  not 
dead  Castro,  nor  dead  Ticli borne,  nor  live  Alias,  who  is 
he  ?  Here  then  to  those,  who  go  with  me  so  far,  I  pro- 
ceed to  state  the  leading  principle,  which  governs  the 
case  thus  narrowed,  and  —  always  implied,  though  un- 
fortunately never  stated  —  led  our  courts  to  a  reasonable 
conclusion.     That  principle  is  : 

THE  PROGRESSIVE  VALUE  OF  PROVED  COINCIDENCES  ALL 
POINTING  TO  ONE  CONCLUSION. 

Pray  take  notice  that  by  proved  coincidences  I  mean 
coincidences  that  are  — 

1.  — Not  merely  seeming,  but  independent  and  real. 

2.  —  Either  undisputed,  or  indisputable. 

3.  —  Either  extracted  from  a  hostile  witness,  which  is 
the  highest  kind  of  evidence,  especially  where  the  wit- 
ness is  a  deliberate  liar  ;  or 

4.  —  Directly  sworn  to  by  respectable  witnesses  in 
open  court,  and  then  cross-examined  and  not  shaken  — 
which  is  the  next  best  evidence  to  involuntary  admissions 
of  a  liar  interested  in  concealing  the  truth. 

Men  born  to  be  deceived  like  children  may  think  these 
precautions  extravagant :  but  they  are  neither  excessive 
nor  new  :  they  are  sober,  true,  and  just  to  both  the 
parties  in  every  mortal  cause ;  they  have  been  for  ages 
the  safeguard  of  all  great  and  wary  minds ;  and  neither 
I  nor  any  other  man  can  lay  down  any  general  position 
of  reasoning,  that  will  guide  men  aright,  who  are  so 
arrogant,  so  ignorant,  or  so  weak,  as  to  scorn  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  your  readers  will  accept  these 
safeguards,  the  general  principle  I  have  laid  down  will 
never  deceive  them  ;  it  will  show  them  who  the  Claimant 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    COINCIDEXCES.  115 

is,  and  it  will   aid  tliein  in  far  greater  difficulties,  and 
more  important  enquiries  ;  for,  like  all  sound  principles 
of  reason,  it  is  equally  applicable  to  questions  of  science, 
literature,  history,  or  crime. 
I  am.  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES    READE. 


SECOND   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  A  single  indisputable  coincidence  raises  a  pre- 
sumption, that  often  points  towards  the  truth. 

A  priori  what  is  more  unlikely  than  that  the  moon,  a 
mere  satellite,  and  a  very  small  body,  should  so  attract 
the  giant  earth  as  to  cause  our  tides  ?  Indeed,  for  years 
science  rejected  the  theory  ;  but  certain  changes  of  the 
tide  coinciding  regularly  with  changes  of  the  moon  wore 
out  prejudice,  and  have  established  the  truth.  Yet  these 
coincident  changes,  though  repeated  ad  infinitum,  make 
but  one  logical  coincidence. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  owned  that  a  single 
coincidence  often  deceives.  To  take  a  sublunary  and 
appropriate  example,  the  real  Martin  Guerre  had  a  wart 
on  his  cheek ;  so  had  the  sham  Martin  Guerre.  The 
coincidence  was  genuine  and  remarkable :  yet  the  men 
were  distinct.  But  mark  the  ascending  ratio  —  see  the 
influence  on  the  mind  of  a  double  coincidence  —  when 
the  impostor  with  the  real  wart  told  the  sisters  of  Martin 
Guerre  some  particulars  of  their  family  history,  and 
reminded  Martin's  wife  of  something  he  had  said  to  her 
on  their  bridal  night,  in  the  solitude  of  the  nuptial  cham- 
ber, this  seeming  knowledge,  coupled  with  that  real  wart. 


1 1 G  READIANA. 

struck  her  mind  with  the  force  of  a  double  coincidence ; 
and  no  more  was  needed  to  make  her  accept  the  impostor, 
and  cohabit  with  him  for  years. 

Does  not  this  enforce  what  I  urged  in  my  first  letter, 
as  to  the  severe  caution  necessary  in  receiving  alleged, 
or  seeming,  or  manipulated  coincidences,  as  if  they  were 
proved  and  real  ones  ?  However,  I  use  the  above  inci- 
dent at  present  mainly  to  show  the  ascending  ;power  on 
the  mind  of  coincidences  when  received  as  genuine. 

I  will  now  show  their  ascending  value  when  proved  in 
open  court  and  tested  by  cross-examination. 

A.  was  found  dead  of  a  gunshot  wound,  and  the 
singed  paper  that  had  been  used  for  wadding  lay  near 
him.  It  was  a  fragment  of  the  Times.  B.'s  house  was 
searched,  and  they  found  there  a  gun  recently  dis- 
charged, and  the  copy  of  the  Times,  from  Avhich  the 
singed  paper  aforesaid  had  been  torn ;  the  pieces  fitted 
exactly. 

The  same  thing  happened  in  France  with  a  slight 
variation ;  the  paper  used  for  wadding  was  part  of  an  old 
breviary  subsequently  found  in  B.'s  house. 

The  salient  facts  of  each  case  made  a  treble  coinci- 
dence. What  was  the  result  ?  The  treble  coincidence 
sworn,  cross-examined,  and  unshaken,  hanged  the  Eng- 
lishman, and  guillotined  the  Frenchman.  In  neither 
case  was  there  a  scintilla  of  direct  evidence  ;  in  neither 
case  was  the  verdict  impugned. 

I  speak  within  bounds  when  I  say  that  a  genuine 
double  coincidence,  proved  beyond  doubt,  is  not  twice, 
but  two  hundred  times,  as  strong,  as  one  such  coinci- 
dence, and  that  a  genuine  treble  coincidence  is  many 
thousand  times  as  strong  as  one  such  coincidence.  But, 
when  we  get  to  a  five-fold  coincidence  real  and  proved, 


THE    DOCTRIXE    OF    COTKCIDENCES.  IIT 

it  is  a  millicm.  to  one  against  all  these  honest  circum- 
stances having  combined  to  deceive  ns. 

As  for  a  seven-fold  coincidence  not  manipulated,  nor 
merely  alleged,  but  fully  proved,  does  either  history, 
science,  literature,  or  crime  offer  one  example  of  its  ever 
misleading  the  human  mind  ?  Why,  the  very  existence 
of  seven  independent  and  indisputable  coincidences,  all 
pointing  to  one  conclusion,  is  a  rarity  so  great,  that,  in 
all  my  reading,  I  hardly  know  where  to  find  an  example 
of  it  except  in  the  defence  that  baffled  this  claimant  at 

Nisi  Prius. 

Now,  on  that  occasion,  the  parties  encountered  each 
other  plump  on  various  lines  of  evidence.  There  were 
direct  recognitions  of  his  personal  identity  by  respectable 
witnesses,  and  direct  disavowals  of  the  same  by  respect- 
able witnesses,  just  as  there  were  in  the  case  of  sham 
Martin  Guerre,  who]  brought  thirty  honest  disinterested 
witnesses  to  swear  he  was  the  man  he  turned  out  not  to 

be. 

With  this  part  of  the  case  I  will  not  meddle  here, 

though  I  have  plenty  to  say  upon  it. 

But  both  parties  were  also  multiplied  coincidences : 
only  some  of  these  were  real,  some  apparent,  some 
manipulated,  some  honest  and  independent,  some  said  or 
sworn  out  of  court  by  liars,  who  knew  better  than  to 
venture  into  the  witness-box  with  them ;  some  proved 
by  cross-examination,  or  in  spite  of  it.  We  have  only 
to  subject  this  hodge-podge  of  real  and  sham  to  the  ap- 
proved test  laid  down  in  my  first  letter,  and  we  shall  see 
daylight;  for  the  Claimant's  is  a  clear  case,  made 
obscure  by  verbosity,  and   conjecture   in   the   teeth  of 

proof ! 

A.    He  proved  in  court  a  genuine  coincidence  of  a  cor- 


118  READIANA. 

poreal  kind  —  viz.,  that  Roger  Tichborne  was  in-kneed, 
with  the  left  leg  turned  out  more  than  the  right,  and  the 
Claimant  was  in-kneed  in  a  similar  wa}'. 

This  is  a  remarkable  coincidence,  and  cross-exami- 
nation failed  to  shake  it. 

But  when  he  attempted  to  prove  a  second  coincidence 
of  corporeal  peculiarities  like  the  above,  which,  being  the 
work  of  nature,  cannot  be  combated,  what  a  falling  off 
in  the  evidence. 

B.  They  found  in  the  Claimant  a  congenital  brown 
mark  on  the  side ;  but  they  could  only  assert  or  imagine 
a  similar  mark  in  Tichborne.  No  vied  voce  evidence  by 
eye-witnesses  to  anything  of  the  sort. 

C.  They  proved,  by  Dr.  Wilson,  a  peculiar  formation 
in  the  Claimant :  but  instead  of  proving  by  some  doctor, 
surgeon,  or  eye-witness  a  similar  formation  in  Tich- 
borne, they  went  off  into  wild  inferences.  The  eccen- 
tric woman,  who  kept  her  boy  three  years  under  a 
seton,  had  also  kept  him  a  long  time  in  frocks ;  and  the 
same  boy,  when  a  moody  young  man,  had  written  des- 
pondent phrases,  such  as,  in  all  other  cases,  impl}-  a 
dejected  mind,  but  here  are  to  be  perverted  to  indicate  a 
mal-formed  hodijy  although  many  doctors,  surgeons,  and 
nurses,  knew  Tichborne's  body,  and  not  one  of  all  these 
ever  saw  this  malformation  which,  in  the  nude  bod}', 
must  have  been  visible  fifty  yards  off.  In  short,  the  co- 
incidences B  and  C,  were  proved  incidences  with  un- 
proved "Co's." 

Failing  to  establish  a  double  coincidence  of  congenital 
features  or  marks,  the  Claimant  went  off  into  artificial 
skin  marks. 

Examples  :  Roger  had  marks  of  a  seton  ;  the  Claim- 
ant showed  marks  of  a  similar  kind. 


THE   DOCTEINE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  119 

Roger  had  a  cut  at  the  back  of  his  head,  and  another 
on  his  wrist.     So  had  the  Claimant. 

Roger  had  the  seams  of  a  lancet  on  his  ankles.  The 
Claimant  came  provided  with  punctures  on  the  ankle. 

Roger  winked  and  blinked.     So  did  the  Claimant. 

Then  there  was  something  about  a  mark  on  the  eye- 
lid :  but  on  this  head  I  forget  whether  the  Claimant's 
witness  ever  faced  cross-examination.  Nor  does  it 
very  much  matter,  for  all  these  artificial  coincidences 
are  rotten  at  the  core ;  unlike  the  one  true  corporeal  co- 
incidence the  Claimant  proved,  they  could  all  be  imi- 
tated ;  and,  as  regards  the  ankles,  imitation  was  reason- 
ably suspected  in  court,  for  the  Claimant's  needle-pricks 
were  unlike  the  seam  of  a  lancet,  and  were  not  applied 
to  the  ankle-pulse,  as  they  would  have  been,  by  a  sur- 
geon on  lean  Tichborne,  in  whom  the  saphena  vein 
would  be  manifest,  and  even  the  ankle-pulse  perceptible, 
though  not  in  a  fair,  fat,  and  false  representative.  Then 
the  seton  marks  were  stiffly  disputed,  and  the  balance  of 
medical  testimony  was  that  the  Claimant's  marks  were 
not  of  that  precise  character. 

These  doubtful  coincidences  were  also  encountered  by 
direct  dissidences  on  the  same  line  of  observation. 
Roger  was  bled  in  the  temporal  artery,  and  the  Claimant 
showed  no  puncture  there.  Roger  was  tattooed  with  a 
crown,  cross  and  anchor  by  a  living  witness,  who  faced 
cross-examination,  and  several  witnesses  in  the  cause 
saw  the  tattoo  marks  at  various  times ;  and  it  was  no 
answer  to  all  this  positive  evidence  to  bring  witnesses 
who  did  not  tattoo  him,  and  other  witnesses  who  never 
saw  the  tattoo  marks.  The  pickpocket,  who  brought 
twenty  witnesses  that  did  not  see  him  pick  a  certain 
pocket,    against    two   who   did,   was    defeated   by   the 


120  READIANA. 

intrinsic  nature  of  evidence.  I  shall  ask  no  person  to 
receive  any  coincidence  from  me  that  was  so  shaken  and 
made  doubtful,  and  also  neutralised  by  dissidences,  as 
the  imitable  skin  marks  in  this  case  were.  But  the 
Claimant  also  opened  a  large  vein  of  apparant  coinci- 
dences in  the  knowledge  shown  by  him  at  certain  times 
and  places  of  numerous  men  and  things  known  to  Koger 
Tichborne.  These  were  very  remarkable.  He  knew 
private  matters  known  to  Tichborne  and  A,  to  Tichborne 
and  B,  to  Tichborne  and  C,  etc.,  and  he  knew  more 
about  Tichborne  than  either  A,  B,  C,  etc.,  individually 
knew.  It  is  not  fair  nor  reasonable  to  pooh-pooh  this. 
But  the  defendants  met  this  fairly  ;  they  said  these  co- 
incidences were  not  arrived  at  by  his  being  Tichborne,  but 
by  his  pumping  various  individuals  who  knew  Tichborne  : 
and  they  applied  fair  and  sagacious  tests  to  the  matter. 
They  urged  as  a  general  truth  that  Tichborne  in 
Australia  would  have  known  just  as  much  about  him- 
self, his  relations,  and  his  affairs  as  he  subsequently 
knew  in  England.  And  I  must  do  them  the  justice  to 
say  this  position  is  impregnable.  Then  they  went  into 
detail  and  proved  that  when  Gibbs  first  spotted  the 
Claimant  at  Wagga-AVagga,  he  was  as  ignorant  as  dirt  of 
Tichborne  matters  ;  did  not  know  the  Christian  names  of 
Tichborne's  mother,  nor  the  names  of  the  Tichborne 
estates,  nor  the  counties  where  they  lay.  They  then 
showed  the  steps  by  which  his  ignorance  might  have 
been  partially  lessened  and  much  knowledge  picked  up ; 
they  showed  a  lady  who  longed  to  be  deceived,  and  all 
but  said  so,  putting  him  by  letter  on  to  Bogle  —  Bogle 
startled  and  pumped  —  the  Claimant  showing  the  upper 
part  of  his  face  in  Paris  to  the  lady  who  wanted  to  be 
deceived,  and,  after  recognition  on  those*  terms,  pumping 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF    COINCIDENCES.  121 

her  largely ;  then  coming  to  England  with  a  large  stock 
of  fact  thus  obtained,  and  in  England  pumping  Carter, 
Bulpitt,  and  others,  searching  Lloyd's,  etc. 

2.  Having  proved  the  gradual  yrowth  of  knowledge 
in  the  Claimant  between  Wagga-Wagga  and  the  Court 
of  Common  Pleas,  they  took  him  in  court  with  all  his 
acquired  knowledge,  and  cross-examined  him  on  a  vast 
number  of  things  well  known  to  Tichborne.  Under 
this  test,  for  which  his  preparations  were  necessarily  im- 
perfect, he  betrayed  a  mass  of  ignorance,  on  a  multitude 
of  things  familiar  to  Koger  Tichborne,  and  he  betrayed  it 
not  frankly  as  honest  men  betray  ignorance,  or  oblivion 
of  what  they  have  once  really  known,  but  in  spite  of 
such  fencing,  evading,  shuffling,  and  equivocating,  as  the 
most  experienced  have  rarely  seen  in  the  witness-box. 
Personating  a  gentleman  he  shuffled  without  a  blush  ; 
personating  a  collegian,  he  did  not  know  what  a  quad- 
rangle is.  The  inscription  over  the  Stonyhurst  quad- 
rangle, "  Laus  Deo,"  was  strange  to  him.  He  thought 
it  meant  something  about  the  laws  of  God.  He  knew 
no  French,  no  Latin.  He  thought  Caesar  was  a  Greek : 
and,  when  a  crucial  test  was  offered  him,  which,  if  he 
had  been  Tichborne  he  would  have  welcomed  with  de- 
light, and  turned  the  scale  in  his  favour,  when  a  thought- 
ful comment  by  Eoger  Tichborne  on  the  character  of 
Rene  was  submitted  to  him,  and  he  was  questioned 
about  this  Rene,  he  was  utterly  flabbergasted.  He 
wriggled  and  writhed,  and  brazened  out  his  ignorance, 
but  it  shone  forth  in  spite  of  him.  He  was  evidently 
not  the  man,  who  had  tasted  Chateaubriand,  and  written 
a  thoughtful  comment  on  Rene.  His  mind  was  not  that 
mind,  any  more  than  his  handwriting  was  that  hand- 
writing. 


122  KEADIANA. 

To  judge  this  whole  vein  of  coincidences,  and  their 
neutralising  dissidences,  the  jury  had  now  before  them 
three  streams  of  fact. 

1.  That  at  Wagga-Wagga  the  Claimant  knew  nothing 
about  Tichborne  more  than  the  advertisements  told  him. 

2.  That  in  England  he  knew  an  incredible  number  of 
things  about  Tichborne. 

3.  That  in  England  he  took  Mrs.  Towneley  for  Roger's 
sweetheart,  and,  even  at  the  trial,  was  ignorant  of  many 
things  Tichborne  could  not  be  ignorant  of. 

jS^OW,  IX  ALL  CASES,  WHERE  THERE  ARE  SEVERAL  FACTS 
INDISPUTABLE,  YET  SEEMINGLY  OPPOSED,  SCIENCE  DE- 
CLARES THE  TRUE  SOLUTION  TO  BE  THAT,  WHICH,  SETTING 
ASIDE  THE  DOUBTFUL  FACTS,  RECONCILES  ALL  THE  INDIS- 
PUTABLE FACTS. 

This  maxim  is  infallible  : 

The  good  sense  of  the  jury  led  them  to  this  solution 
as  surely  as  science  would  have  led  a  jury  of  Huxleys 
and  Tyndals  to  it ;  and  they  decided  that  the  coinciden- 
ces were  remarkable,  but  manipulated,  the  knowledge 
astonishing,  but  acquired,  the  ignorance  an  inevitable 
residue,  which  only  Tichborne  could  have  escaped. 
They  saw  a  small  pump  working  in  Australia,  a  large 
pump  working  in  Paris,  a  huge  pump  working  in 
England,  but  a  human,  and  therefore  finite,  pump 
after  all,  as  proved  in  court  by  examination  of  the 
E-adcliffes,  Gosford,  and  others  ;  and,  above  all,  by  cross- 
examination  of  the  Claimant,  which  last  is  the  highest 
evidence. 

So  much  for  the  single  genuine  coincidence  of  the 
knees,  and  the  manipulated  coincidences  of  artificial 
skin-marks,  and  acquired  knowledge,  relied  on  for  the 
Claimant. 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  123 

At  this  stage  your  readers  should  ask  themselves  two 
questions  — 

1st.  Is  not  history  printed  experience ;  and  ought  ex- 
perience to  be  printed  in  vain  ? 

Did  not  the  real  wart,  and  the  simulated  knowledge, 
and  the  thirty  direct  witnesses  of  the  sham  Martin 
Guerre,  anticipate  the  broad  outline  of  this  Claimant's 
case? 

2nd.  As  regards  the  coincidences,  which  were  not  only 
open  to  the  charge  of  manipulation,  but  also  neutralised 
by  dissidences,  are  they  mighty  enough  to  convince  any 
candid  mind  that  a  fat,  live  person  —  who  slaughtered 
bullocks  and  married  a  housemaid,  and  swore  in  the  box 
without  a  blush  that  he  had  lied,  like  a  low  fellow,  to 
his  friend  and  benefactor,  Gibbes,  and  that  he  well  knew, 
and  had  loved,  and  after  the  manner  of  the  lower  orders 
seduced  a  lady  (though  he  afterwards  took  Mrs.  Towne- 
ley  for  her),  and  still  following  the  lower  orders,  blasted 
her  reputation  —  was  the  lean,  dead  aristocrat,  Tichborne, 
who  went  down  in  the  Bella,  with  all  hands,  not  one  of 
whom  has  reappeared,  and  died,  as  he  had  lived,  the  del- 
icate, loyal  lover  of  the  chaste  Kate  Doughty  —  and  a 
gentleman  —  and  a  man  of  honour  ? 

I  will  now  show,  in  contrast,  the  indisputable  coinci- 
dences, which,  converging  from  different  quarters,  all 
point  to  one  conclusion  —  that  the  Claimant  is  Arthur 
Orton,  of  Wapping. 

I  am.  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHAELES   READE. 


124  KEADIANA. 


THIED    LETTER 

Sir, —  I  now  venture  to  hope  that  all  I  have  written 
will  seem  silly  to  fanatics,  and  that  unprejudiced  minds 
will  grant  me  — 

1.  That,  where  there  are  indisputable  facts  and  doubt- 
ful ones,  the  true  solution  is  that,  which  ignores  the 
doubtful,  and  reconciles  all  the  indisputable,  facts. 

2.  That  two  coincidences,  are  a  hundred  times  as 
strong  as  one,  and  five  coincidences  a  million  times  as 
strong  as  one ;  and  so  on  in  a  gigantic  ratio  as  the  coin- 
cidences multiply. 

3.  That  coincidences,  like  other  circumstances,  must 
rest  on  legal  evidence,  and  that  there  is  a  scale  of  legal 
evidence,  without  which  a  man  would  be  all  at  sea  in 
any  great  trial,  since  such  trials  arise  out  of  a  conflict 
of  evidence.  I  indicated  this  scale  in  my  first  letter ; 
but  as  it  is  not  encountered,  but  ignored  in  all  the  replies 
I  have  seen,  I  will  amplify  and  enforce  it. 

The  Scale  of  Evidence. 

A.  A  written  affidavit,  not  cross-examined,  is  "  perjury 

MADE  EASY." 

B.  A  written  affidavit,  signed  by  a  person  who  could 
carry  his  statement  into  open  Court,  but  does  not,  is 
PERJURY  DECLARED  :  for,  wlicu  a  mau's  actions  con- 
tradict his  words,  it  is  his  words  that  lie. 

C.  In  open  Court  the  lowest  kind  of  evidence  is  the  evi- 
dence in  chief  of  the  plaintiff,  or  defendant. 

D.  The  highest  evidence  is  the  admission,  under  cross- 
examination,  of  the  plaintiff,  or  defendant. 

E.  The  next  highest  is  the  evidence  in  chief  of  disinter- 
ested persons,  not  shaken  by  cross-examination. 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  125 

These  rules  were  not  invented  by  me,  nor  for  me  nor 
against  the  Claimant.  They  are  very  old,  very  true, 
and  equally  applicable  to  every  great  trial  —  past,  pres- 
ent and  to  come. 

Yet  you  have  a  correspondent,  in  whose  mind  this 
scale  of  evidence  has  no  place ;  he  gravely  urges  that 
the  bestial  ignorance  of  the  Tichborne  estates,  and  the 
bereaved  woman's  name  he  called  his  mother,  shown  by 
the  claimant  at  Wagga-Wagga,  in  his  very  will,  a  solemn 
instrimient,  by  which  he  provided  for  Ms  own  wife,  and 
expected  child,  was  not  real,  as  forsooth  all  his  knowledge 
was,  but  feigned  in  order  to  humbug  his  protector  with- 
out a  motive,  and  bilk  his  own  icife  out  of  her  sole  provi- 
sion, and  sole  claims  on  the  Tichborne  property  ;  and  for 
this  self-evident  falsehood  your  correspondent's  authority 
is  the  evidence  of  the  Claimant  himself,  a  party  in  the 
suit,  and  a  party  interested  in  lying,  and  throwing  dust 
in  the  eyes  of  simpletons,  who  cannot  see  a  church  by 
daylight  if  some  shallow  knave  says  it  is  a  pigeon-house. 

It  was  almost  as  childish  to  reply  to  me  with  the  evi- 
dence of  Moore.  What  evidence  ?  Why,  he  never  ven- 
tured into  court. 

Mr.  Moore  is  a  humbug,  who  wrote  down  a  romance, 
and  —  fled.  Catch  him  carrying  his  tale  into  the  witness- 
box,  and,  being  cross-examined  out  of  fiction's  fairy 
realm  into  one  of  Her  Majesty's  jails !  See  scale  of  evi- 
dence B.  These  two  great  instrrunents  of  evidence, 
men  and  circumstances,  resemble  each  other  in  this,  that 
men  do  not  lie  without  a  motive,  and  circumstances  never 
have  a  motive,  and  therefore  never  lie,  though  man  may 
misinterpret  them.  And  it  is  the  beauty  of  true  coinci- 
dences that  in  them  circumstances  preponderate,  and 
man  plays  second  fiddle.     A  coincidence  often  surprises 


1 2G  READIANA. 

even  deceitful  men  into  revealing  the  truth :  for  a  coin- 
cidence is  two  facts  pointing  to  one  conclusion ;  and  the 
effect  of  the  first  fact  is  seldom  seen  till  the  second 
comes,  and  then  it  is  too  late  to  tamper  effectually  with 
the  pair. 

You  will  see  this  pure  and  unforeseeing  character  run- 
ning through  most  of  the  coincidences  I  now  lay  before 
you. 

1.  It  was  proved  that  Tichborne  was  in-kneed,  and 
dead,  and  that  the  Claimant  and  Arthur  Orton  are  in- 
kneed  and  alive. 

2.  Disinterested  witnesses  swore  that  Arthur  Orton 
was  unusually  stout  at  twenty,  and  was  called  at  AVap- 
ping,  "  bullocky  "  Orton.  Later  in  his  life,  Australian 
witnesses,  who  knew  him,  described  him  as  uncommonly 
lusty.  The  Claimant's  figure  is  described  in  similar 
terms  by  all  the  Australian  witnesses  who  knew  him. 
Now,  many  a  lean  youth  puts  on  fat  between  thirty -five 
and  forty,  but  lean,  active  men  do  not  very  often  fatten 
from  twenty  to  thirty.  This,  therefore,  is  a  coincidence, 
though  a  feeble  one. 

3.  Arthur  Orton,  born  September  13th,  1832,  was  the 
youngest  son  of  George  Orton,  a  shipping  butcher,  and  an 
importer  of  Shetland  ponies.  He  used  to  ride  the  ponies 
from  the  Dundee  steamers,  and  so  got  a  horseman's  seat ; 
for  they  are  awkward  animals  to  ride,  if  you  take  them 
like  that,  one  after  another,  raw  from  the  Shetland  Isles. 
When  full  grown,  but  under  age,  he  slaughtered  and 
dressed  sheep  and  bullocks  for  his  father. 

The  Claimant  in  Australia  lived  by  riding,  and  slaugh 
tering,  and  dressing  beasts.     On  this  point,  his  own  evi- 
dence agrees  with  that  of  every  witness  who  knew  him. 
And  when  he  came  up  the  Thames  in  the  Cella  to  per- 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    COIXCIDEXCES.  127 

sonate  Tichborne,  he  asked  the  pilot  what  had  become  of 
Ferguson,  the  man  who  used  to  be  pilot  of  the  Dundee 
boats.  All  this  taken  together  is  rather  a  strong  coinci- 
dence. It  may  seem  weak ;  but  apply  a  test.  To  whom 
does  all  this,  as  a  whole  apply  ?  The  riding,  —  the 
slaughtering,  —  and  the  spontaneous  interest  in  an  old 
Dundee  pilot?  To  Castro?  To  Tichborne?  To  any 
known  man  not  an  Orton  ? 

4.  In  1848,  Arthur  Orton,  aged  16,  sailed  to  Valpa- 
raiso, and  subsequently  in  June,  1849,  made  his  way  to 
Melipilla.  He  was  young,  fair,  the  only  English  boy  in 
the  place,  and  the  good  people  took  to  him.  He  made 
friends  with  Dona  Hayley,  wife  of  an  English  doctor, 
and  with  Thomas  Castro  and  his  wife,  and  many  others. 
They  were  very  kind  to  him  in  1849,  and  '50,  particu- 
larly Doiia  Hayley,  and  in  these  gentle  minds  the  kindly 
feeling  survived  the  lapse  of  time,  and  his  long  neglect 
of  them.  Not  foreseeing  in  1850  his  little  game  in  1866, 
Arthur  Orton  told  Doiia  Hayley  he  was  the  son  of 
Orton,  the  Queen's  butcher,  and  as  a  child  had  played 
with  the  Queen's  children.  Not  being  a  prophet,  all  this 
bounce  at  that  date  went  to  aggrandise  Orton.  He  spoke 
of  Arthur's  sisters,  by  name,  and  Doiia  Hayley,  twenty 
years  after,  remembered  the  names  with  slight  and 
natural  variations.  The  wife  of  Thomas  Castro  was 
called  at  Melipilla  Dona  Natalia  Sarmiento  :  but  this 
English  boy,  knowing  her  to  be  the  wife  of  Castro,  used 
to  call  her  Mrs.  Castro. 

This  seems  to  have  amused  Dona  Hayley,  and  she 
noted  it.  This  boy  was  not  Castro,  for  Castro  was  an 
elderly  Spaniard,  kind  to  this  boy  on  the  spot,  and  at 
the  time.  He  was  not  Tichborne,  for  Tichborne  was  in 
England  till   late   in    1852.      Tichborne's    alibi   during 


128  READIANA. 

Arthur  Orton's  Avhole  visit  to  Melipilla  is  proved  by  a 
cloud  of  witnesses,  and  his  own  writing,  and  is  indeed, 
admitted ;  he  sailed  late  in  1852,  and  reached  Chili  in 
1853.     Arthur  Orton  was  back  in  England,  June  1851. 

Now  so  much  of  this  as  respects  Arthur  Orton  is  the 
first  branch  of  a  pure,  unforeseen  coincidence.  The  sec- 
ond branch  is  this  —  The  Claimant  on  the  28th  August, 
1867,  wrote  from  his  solicitor's  office,  25,  Poultry,  to 
prepare  the  good  Melipillians  for  a  new  theory  —  that 
Arthur  Orton,  seventeen  years  old  to  the  naked  eye  was 
not  Castro,  —  (that  cock  might  fight  in  Hobart  Town, 
but  not  in  Melipilla)  ;  not  Castro,  but  Tichborne,  age  23. 
He  wrote  to  Thomas  Castro,  complained  he  was  kept  out 
of  his  estates,  and  begged  to  be  kindly  remembered  to 
Don  Juan  Hayley,  to  Clara  and  Jesusa,  to  Don  Ramon 
Alcade,  Dona  Hurtado,  to  Seiiorita  Matilda,  Jose  Maria 
Berenguel,  and  his  brother,  and  others,  in  short  to  twelve 
persons  besides  Castro  himself.  One  of  the  messages 
has  2Jer  se  the  character  of  a  coincidence.  "  My  respects 
to  Doiia  Natalia  Sarmiento,  or,  as  I  used  to  call  her, 
Mrs.  Castro." 

Thomas  Castro,  to  whom  this  was  sent,  being  in  con- 
finement as  a  lunatic,  his  son  Pedro  Castro,  replied  in  a 
letter  full  of  kindness,  simple  faith,  and  a  desire  to  serve 
his  injured  friend.  His  letter  carries  God's  truth 
stamped  on  it.  His  replies  to  the  kind  messages  accord 
with  our  sad  experience  of  time  and  its  ravages.  "  His 
father  bereft  of  reason,  his  mother  —  dead  this  fourteen 
months.  Dona  Hayley's  recollection  of  the  boy  perfect, 
and  she  is  ready  to  serve  him,  and  depose  to  the  truth. 
But  the  doctor's  memory  gone  through  intemperance. 
Dona  Jesusa  dead."  "  Don  Jose  Maria  Berenguel  is  not 
so  called,  his  name  is  Don  Francesco  Berenguel.     He  is 


THE   DOCTEIXE   OF   COINCIDENCES.  129 

established  at  Valparaiso."  Then  the  writer  goes  on  to 
say  what  had  become  of  the  other  friends  enquired  after 
by  the  Claimant.  One  of  them  he  specifies  in  particular 
as  taking  fire  at  the  Claimant's  letter,  and  remembering 
all  about  him,  and  desirous  to  serve  him,  he  himself 
being  animated  by  the  same  spirit,  tells  him  that  Dona 
Francesca  Ahumada  retains  a  lock  of  his  hair,  which  he 
suggests  the  Claimant  might  turn  to  account :  and  so  he 
might  if  he  had  been  Tichborne.  In  the  same  spirit  he 
warns  him  that  his  enemies  had  an  agent  at  Melipilla 
hunting  up  data  to  use  against  him. 

The  correspondence  thus  begun  continued  in  the  same 
spirit. 

The  whole  coincidence  is  this :  The  Claimant  stayed 
a  long  time  at  Melipilla  in  1849  and  1850,  and  called 
himself  Arthur  Orton,  and  proved  himself  Arthur  Orton, 
by  giving  full  details  of  his  family,  and  left  Chili  in 
1850,  during  all  which  time  an  alihi  is  proved  for  Tich- 
borne, but  none  can  be  proved  nor  has  ever  been  at- 
tempted, for  Arthur  Orton.  On  the  contrary,  a  non 
alibi  was  directly  proved  for  him.  He  was  traced  from 
Wapping  to  Valparaiso,  and  Melipilla,  in  1848.  His 
stay  there  till  1850  was  proved,  and  then  he  was  traced 
in  1850  into  the  Jessie  Miller,  and  home  to  Wapping  in 
1851  just  as  he  had  been  traced  out  —  by  ships'  registers 
and  a  cloud  of  witnesses. 

The  coincidence  rests  on  the  two  highest  kinds  of  evi- 
dence, the  Claimant's  written  admission,  and  the  direct 
evidence  of  respectable  witnesses  unshaken  by  cross- 
examination  (see  scale  of  evidence),  and  it  points  to  the 
Claimant  as  Arthur  Orton. 

Those  who  can  see  he  is  not  Tichborne,  but  are  de- 
ceived by  the  falsehoods  of  men  into  believing  he  is  not 


130  EEADIANA. 

Orton,  should  give  special  study  to  this  coincidence ;  for 
here  the  Claimant  is  either  Tichborne  or  Orton.  No 
third  alternative  is  possible.  At  Melipilla,  in  1850,  he 
was  either  Orton,  who  was  there,  aged  17,  or  Tichborne, 
who  was  in  England,  aged  23. 

5.  There  was,  for  some  years,  a  bulky  man  in  Aus- 
tralia riding  and  breaking  horses,  slaughtering  and  dress- 
ing beasts.  His  name  —  Castro  —  appears  when  that  of 
Orton  disappears.  The  two  men  seem  to  differ  in  name 
but  not  in  figure  and  occupation.  And  no  witness  ever 
came  into  the  witness-box  and  swore  that  he  had  ever 
seen  these  two  portly  butchers  in  two  different  skins. 
In  1867  the  Claimant  explained  this  phenomenon. 

In  his  letter  to  Thomas  Castro  he  wrote  thus  :  —  "  And 
another  strange  thing  I  have  to  tell  you,  and  I  have  no 
doubt  you  will  say  I  took  a  great  liberty  on  myself,  that 
is  to  say,  I  took  and  made  use  of  your  name,  and  was 
only  known  in  Australia  by  the  name  of  Thomas  Castro. 
I  said  also  I  belonged  to  Chili."  He  adds,  however,  an 
assurance  that  he  had  never  disgraced  him  as  a  horse- 
man. This  coincidence  proves  that  whenever  we  meet 
in  Australia  a  bulky  butcher,  stock-keeper,  horse-breaker, 
&c.,  called  Thomas  Castro,  of  Chili,  that  means  the 
Claimant,  and  also  means  Arthur  Orton,  of  Melipilla. 

And  Arthur  Orton  of  Melipilla,  is  Arthur  Orton  of 
Wapping. 

6.  This  sham  Castro,  sham  Chilian,  sham  aristocrat, 
&c.,  married,  as  people  do  nine  times  in  ten,  into  his 
own  class,  a  servant  girl  who  could  not  write  her  name. 
She  made  her  mark.  He  forged  a  friend's  name.  Ap- 
parently he  did  not  foresee  he  was  going  to  leave  off 
shamming  Castro  and  begin  shamming  Tichborne,  a  stiff 
Papist ;  so  he  got  married  by  a  dissenting  minister  and 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  131 

in  signing  the  register,  described  himself  as  thirty  years 
old. 

Castro  was,  say  sixty;  Tichborne  was  thirty-six. 
Who  was  thirty  ? 

Arthur  Orton  of  Wapping. 

7.  It  was  the  interest  of  Gibbes  this  man  should  be 
Tichborne.  His  wishes  influenced  his  judgment.  He 
inclined  to  think  he  was  the  right  man.  But  some 
things  staggered  him ;  in  particular  the  man's  want  of 
education.  Gibbes  told  him  frankly  that  seemed  incon- 
sistent. Then  the  Claimant,  to  get  over  that,  told  Gibbes 
that  in  childhood  he  had  a  nervous  affection  which 
checked  his  education.  He  then  described  this  affection 
so  correctly  that  Gibbes  said,  "  Bless  me,  that  is  St. 
Yitus's  dance."  "Yes,"  said  the  Claimant,  "  that  is  what 
they  used  to  call  it." 

This  solution  eased  Gibbes'  mind,  and  he  sat  down 
and,  honestly  enough,  sent  an  account  of  the  conversa- 
tion to  Lady  Tichborne's  agent ;  he  wrote  it  to  serve  the 
plaintiff,  not  foreseeing  the  turn  that  revelation  of  the 
truth  would  take. 

Coming  home  in  the  Rachaia  there  was  some  docu- 
ment or  other  to  be  read  out,  and  the  passengers  confided 
this  to  the  Claimant  as  a  person  claiming  the  highest 
rank.  He  blundered  and  made  a  mess  of  it,  and  showed 
his  ignorance  so  that  suspicion  was  raised,  and  one  Mr. 
Hodson  put  it  point  blank  to  him  —  "  You  a  baronet  and 
can't  read  !  "  Then  the  Claimant  told  him  he  had  been 
afflicted  in  his  boyhood  with  St.  Vitus's  dance,  and  could 
not  learn  his  letters. 

It  was  afterwards  proved  by  a  surgeon  and  a  multi- 
tude of  witnesses  that  at  ten  years  of  age  Arthur  Orton 
had   been  frightened  by  a  fire,   and   afflicted   with  St. 


132  READIANA. 

Vitus's  dance,  and  that  this  had  really  checked  his  edu- 
cation, and  that  the  traces  of  it  had  remained  by  him 
for  years ;  and  that,  in  fact,  he  was  sent  to  sea  in  hopes 
of  a  cure.  This  coincidence  is  very  strong.  Observe  — 
it  is  not  confined  to  the  disease ;  but  to  the  time  of  life, 
and  its  effect  on  a  boy's  education. 

Xo  doubt  a  third  man  neither  Tichborne  nor  Orton 
might  have  St.  Vitus's  dance  as  a  little  boy,  and  so  be 
made  a  dunce  in  spite  of  great  natural  ability.  There 
is  not  above  a  hundred  thousand  to  one  against  it ;  but 
coming  after  coincidences  4,  5,  and  6,  which  clear  away 
Castro  and  all  other  mere  vapours,  and  confine  tlie  ques- 
tion to  Tichborne  or  Orton  have  I  not  now  the  right  to 
say,  Tichborne,  by  admission  of  all  the  witnesses  on  both 
sides,  never  had  St.  Vitus's  dance  ;  Arthur  Orton  undis- 
putably  had  St.  Vitus's  dance ;  the  Claimant  to  account 
for  his  ignorance,  spontaneously  declared  at  different 
times,  and  to  different  people  that  he  had  been  afiiicted 
with  St.  Vitus's  dance,  and  this  coincidence  points  to  the 
Claimant  as  Arthur  Orton  of  Wapping  ? 

Yours  obediently, 

CHAKLES   KEADE. 


FOURTH   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  I  will  ask  those  who  have  done  me  the  honour 
to  keep  my  last  letter,  to  draw  a  circle  on  a  sheet  of 
paper,  the  larger  the  better,  and  to  draw  seven  radii 
from  its  centre  across  the  line  of  circumference  to  the 
edge  of  the  paper ;  then  upon  those  extended  radii,  and 
between  the  circle  and  the  edge  of  the  paper,  I  will  ask 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    COLN^CIDEXCES.  133 

them  to  write  in  small  letters  a  short  epitome  of  each 
coincidence,  or  a  few  words  recalling  what  they  consider 
its  salient  feature. 

Those  who  will  do  me  the  honour  to  take  the  trouble, 
and  so  become  my  fellow-labourers  in  logic,  will  not  re- 
pent it.  It  will,  I  think,  assist  them,  as  it  has  assisted 
me,  to  realize  how  vast  an  area  both  of  territory  and  of 
multifarious  evidence  is  covered  at  the  circumference  by 
these  seven  coincidences,  which  nevertheless  converge  to 
one  central  point,  no  bigger  than  a  pin's  head,  viz.,  that 
this  Claimant,  who  has  owned  himself  a  sham  Castro  of 
Chili,  but  clings  to  his  other  alias,  Tichborne,  is  Arthur 
Orton  of  Wapping. 

8.  From  the  day  the  Bella  foundered  to  the  day 
Gibbes  spotted  the  Claimant,  a  period  of  thirteen  or 
fourteen  years,  Roger  Tichborne  never  wrote  a  line  to 
his  mother  or  his  brother,  or  any  relation  or  friend. 
This  is  accounted  for  rationally  and  charitably  by  his 
being  dead  at  the  bottom  of  the  ocean. 

No,  says  the  Claimant,  I  was  alive  all  the  time,  and 
let  my  mother  and  my  brother  and  my  sweetheart  think 
I  had  died  horribly,  cut  off  in  my  prime. 

The  animal  never  realized  that  he  was  both  drawing 
upon  human  credulity,  and  describing  a  monster  and  a 
beast.  What  was  it  that  so  blinded  his  most  powerful 
understanding  ?  From  1852  to  1865  Arthur  Orton  never 
wrote  a  line  to  Wapping.  He  let  the  father  who  reared 
him,  the  mother  who  bore  him,  go  to  their  graves  with- 
out one  little  word  to  say  their  son  was  alive.  Not  a 
line  to  brother,  sister,  or  sweetheart.  This  unnatural 
trait  being  absent  in  Tichborne  till  he  was  drowned,  and 
present  in  the  Claimant  by  his  own  confession,  and  in 
Arthur  Orton  by  a  pyramid  of  evidence,  is  a  startling 


134  READIANA. 

coincidence  of  a  new  class.  The  unnatural  heart  of  the 
Claimant  is  the  unnatural  heart  of  Arthur  Orton. 

0.  In  1852  Arthur  Orton  went  out  to  Hobart  Town 
with  two  Shetland  ponies  in  the  Mlddleton. 

Subsequentl}' ,  as  the  Claimant  swore,  he  was  for  years 
at  Boisdale  and  Dargo,  slaughtering  and  riding,  &c.,  in 
the  service  of  Mr.  W.  Poster,  and  under  the  name  of 
Castro,  the  Chilian.  Foster's  widow  confirmed  most  of 
this,  and  produced  her  account  books  for  1854,  55,  56, 
57,  and  58,  with  full  details  of  the  Claimant's  service 
during  a  part  of  that  time ;  but  she  knew  him  as  Arthur 
Orton,  and  he  figured  as  Arthur  Orton  all  through  the 
books,  and  the  name  of  Castro  did  not  occur  in  any 
of  these  books.  The  books  were  dry  account  books 
written  in  Australia,  with  a  short-sighted  view  to  the 
things  of  the  place  and  the  time,  and  not  in  prophetic 
anticipation  of  a  London  trial,  that  lay  hid  in  the  womb 
of  time. 

Not  to  multiply  coincidences  unfairly,  I  am  content  to 
throw  in  here,  that  on  a  page  of  a  book  produced  by 
this  Australian  witness,  was  written  as  follows  :  — 

Dargo,  11^^  March,  1858. 
"I,   Arthur    Orton,  &c.,'^  vowing  vengeance  in  good 
set  terms,  on  some  persons  who  had  wronged  him. 

The  witness  had  no  doubt  this  was  written  by  her 
servant,  the  Claimant,  whom,  by  the  by,  she  recognised 
in  court  as  her  Arthur  Orton;  and  two  judges  compared 
the  handwriting  with  the  Claimant's,  and  declared  posi- 
tively they  were  identical.  Now,  the  judges  try  so 
many  questions  of  handwriting,  and  examine  so  many 
skilled  witnesses,  that  they  become  great  experts  in  all 
matters  of  this  kind;  and  as  they  are  judges  who  —  un- 


THE   DOCTRINE    OF    COESTCIDEXCES.  135 

like  other  European  judges  —  can  and  do  disagree,  I 
think  their  consent  on  this  matter,  though  not  sworn 
evidence,  is  very  convincing  to  any  candid  mind.  How- 
ever, I  have  no  wish  to  press  this  part  of  the  coincidence 
separately,  or  unduly ;  but  I  do  say  that,  taken  alto- 
gether, No.  9  is  a  most  weighty  coincidence. 

10.  A  pocket-book  was  produced  at  the  trial  with 
miscellaneous  entries  by  the  Claimant,  artfully  inserted 
to  identify  him  with  Tichborne.  That  being  the  object, 
it  is  unfortunate  that  he  wrote  do^vn  as  follows :  —  La 
Bella,  K.  C.  Tichborne  arrived  at  Hobart  Town,  July 
4,  1854.  Because  at  the  trial  he  said  he  landed  at 
Melbourne. 

The  person  who  landed  at  Hobart  Town  was  Arthur 
Orton  in  the  Middleton.  In  this  same  book  he  wrote  — 
Kodger  Charles  Tichborne,  and  Miss  Mary  Anne  Loader, 
7,  Eussell's  Buildings,  High  Street,  Wapping.  Now, 
here  are  three  things  Roger  Tichborne  was  ignorant  of : 

1.  That  his  name  was  Rodger. 

2.  That  Mary  Anne  Loader  existed. 

3.  That  she  lived  at  7,  Russell's  Buildings,  High 
Street,  Wapping. 

Now,  who  on  earth  was  this,  that  landed,  not  at  Mel- 
bourne, but  Hobart  Town,  and  knew  so  little  about  Roger 
Tichborne,  and  so  much  about  Mary  Anne  Loader  ? 

Who  could  it  be  but  Mary  Anne  Loader's  quondam 
sweetheart,  whose  letters,  written  in  the  Claimant's 
handwriting,  and  signed  Arthur  Orton,  she  brought  into 
Court,  and  identified  the  man  himself  as  her  own  sweet- 
heart, Arthur  Orton  ? 

That  identification  would  be  valueless  by  itself,  in  this 
special  line  of  argument,  but  the  entry  in  the  pocket- 
book  by  the  Claimant's  own  hand  makes  it  a  coincidence. 


136  READIANA. 

11.  At  Wagga-Wagga  the  Claimant,  being  eallerl  upon 
to  play  the  part  of  Tichborue,  made  a  will,  and  appointed 
executors,  to  wit  "  John  Jarvis,  Esq.,  of  Bridport,  Dor- 
setshire, and  my  mother,  Lady  Hannah  Frances  Tich- 
borne."  Failing  either  of  them,  he  appointed  Sir  John 
Bird,  of  Hertfordshire.  As  guardian  of  his  children, 
he  appointed  his  friend  Gibbes ;  and  failing  him,  Mr. 
Henry  Angell.  Now  when  all  this  was  looked  into  by 
the  other  side,  the  Claimant's  aristocratic  friend,  Sir 
John  Bird,  was  found  to  be  a  myth.  That  aristocrat  ex- 
isted, like  the  Claimant's  own  pretensions  to  aristocracy, 
in  the  Claimant's  imagination;  but  the  plebeians  were 
real  men  :  friends  of  Tichborne  ?  Of  course  not.  Jarvis 
and  Angeli  were  old  friends  of  Arthur  Orton.  When 
this  was  discovered,  the  Claimant  pretended  these  ple- 
beian executors  were  suggested  to  him  by  Arthur  Orton ; 
but  Arthur  Orton  was  not  on  the  spot,  except  in  the 
skin  of  the  Claimant ;  out  of  that  skin  neither  Gibbes 
nor  any  witness  saw  him  at  Wagga-AVagga  when  that 
will  was  drawn.  At  the  trial  Angell  recognised  the 
Claimant  as  his  old  acquaintance,  Arthur  Orton,  and 
that  evidence  confirms  a  coincidence  which  was  already 
very  striking. 

12.  The  Claimant  came  home,  asked  after  Ferguson, 
Arthur  Orton's  old  friend,  as  he  steamed  up  the  river, 
and  at  last  got  to  Ford's  Hotel  with  his  wife. 

It  was  Christmas  Day,  a  cold  evening,  and  he  was  in 
the  bosom  of  his  family,  which  people  do  not  leave  for 
strangers  on  Christmas  night.  What  does  he  do  ?  Gets 
up,  leaves  his  family  and  the  Christmas  fire,  and  goes 
off  all  alone  in  a  four-wheel. 

Where  to  ? 

To  Tichborne  ? 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  137 

To  some  place  where  tlie  Tichborne  family  could  be 
heard  of  ? 

No;  to  Wapping. 

He  gets  to  the  Globe,  Wapping,  finds  Mrs.  Johnson, 
who  keeps  the  house,  and  her  mother  who  had  once 
kept  it. 

The  Claimant  walks  in,  orders  a  glass,  and  talks 
about  the  Ortons  and  their  neighbours,  showing  so  much 
more  knowledge  than  any  stranger  in  the  neighbourhood 
could  have  possessed,  that  Mrs.  Fairhead  looked  at  him 
more  keenly,  saw  a  likeness  to  old  George  Orton,  and 
said,  "  Why,  you  must  be  an  Orton." 

Such  is  the  attraction  of  Wapping  that  he  goes  down 
there  again  next  day  and  sees  a  Mrs.  Pardon,  who  also 
observes  his  likeness  to  the  Ortons.  He  passes  himself 
off  not  as  Tichborne,  who  never  could  be  a  friend  of 
Orton's,  but  as  a  Mr.  Stephens,  who  might,  if  he  existed, 
except  as  an  alias. 

He  does  not  attempt  the  Tichborne  lie  at  Wapping, 
any  more  than  the  Oastro  lie  at  Melipilla. 

The  portrait  of  his  own  wife  and  child,  which  he 
gave  as  a  portrait  of  Arthur  Orton's  wife  and  child,  and 
the  other  curious  details  are  pretty  well  known,  and  I 
have  no  wish  to  go  too  far  into  debatable  matter.  Take 
the  indisputable  part  only  of  this  twelfth  coincidence 
and  read  it  with  its  eleven  predecessors. 

13.  There  were  remarkable  coincidences  between  the 
spelling  and  the  handwriting  of  the  Claimant  and  Arthur 
Orton.  This  is  a  part  of  the  subject  I  cannot  properly 
do  justice  to.  I  can  only  select  from  the  mass  of  evi- 
dence the  Chief  Justice  submitted  to  the  jury.  The 
Claimant  writes  the  word  receive  receve,  so  does  Arthur 
Orton ;    also  any  think  and  nothink   for    anything   and 


138  READIA^A. 

nothing,  a  mistake  peculiar  to  the  lower  orders.  They 
also  spell  Elizabeth  Elisaberth.  "Few"  they  spell 
fue  ;  "  whether  "  "  weather."  The  pronoun  I  they  both 
write  i,  after  the  manner  of  the  lower  orders.  But  as 
this  is  not  merely  a  coincidence  but  a  vein  of  coinci- 
dences which  it  would  take  columns  to  explain,  I  prf^- 
fer  to  refer  the  candid  readei-  to  the  masterly  dissection 
of  handwriting  that  took  place  at  the  lasb  trial,  and  the 
Chief  Justice's  most  careful  analysis  of  it. 

14.  At  the  first  trial  there  were  heavy  sums  at  stake, 
and  a  wide  belief  in  the  Claimant,  and  a  romantic  inter- 
est in  him. 

The  Claimant's  friends  would  have  given  hundreds  of 
pounds  to  any  seaman,  who  would  come  into  the  box  and 
prove  he  sailed  in  the  Bella,  on  her  last  trip.  We  all 
know  Jack  tar ;  give  him  his  month's  pay,  and  he  is  as 
ready  to  sail  to  the  port  of  London  as  to  any  other,  and 
readier  to  sail  to  London  for  £300  and  his  month's  pay 
than  to  any  other  port  for  his  month's  pay  alone.  Yet 
not  one  of  these  poor  fellows  could  be  got  alive  to  Lon- 
don, for  the  first  trial.  Why  not  ?  Creation  was  raked 
for  witnesses,  and  with  remarkable  success.  Why  could 
not  one  of  these  seamen  be  raked  for  love  or  money  into 
the  witness-box  of  the  Common-Pleas  ?  Was  it  because 
money  will  not  draw  men  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  or 
was  it  because  the  trial  was  in  London,  and  a  large  sum 
of  money  awaited  them  there  for  expenses  ?  Who  does 
not  see,  that,  had  the  trial  been  at  Melbourne,  these  fab- 
ulous seamen  would  have  been  heard  of,  not  at  Mel- 
bourne, but  in  London  or  some  other  port  ten  thousand 
miles  off,  where  they  could  have  been  talked  about  in  far 
away  Melbourne,  but  never  shown  to  a  Melbourne  jury. 

Well,  the  real  inability,  and  pretended  unwillingness. 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  139 

of  those  poor  seamen  to  come  to  London  and  get  two  or 
three  hundred  pounds  apiece,  is  matched  by  the  real 
inability,  and  fictitious  unwillingness,  of  Arthur  Orton, 
to  show  his  face  in  London  except  in  the  skin  of  the 
Claimant.  The  two  nonappearances  make  one  coinci- 
dence. 

The  Claimant,  who  knows  better  than  any  other  man, 
declared  Arthur  Orton  to  be  alive  in  1866  ;  and  in  Aus- 
tralia ;  and  from  that  time  a  hundred  thousand  eyes  have 
been  looking  for  him  in  the  Colony,  yet  nobody  can  find 
him  there  alive,  or  get  legal  evidence  of  so  marked  a 
man's  decease. 

At  the  first  trial  seven  or  eight  thousand  pounds  were 
waiting  for  him,  just  to  show  his  person  in  the  vritness- 
box  in  any  man's  skin  but  the  Claimant's. 

Yet  he  held  aloof,  and  by  his  absence  killed  the 
Claimant's  case  at  Xisi  Prius. 

At  the  criminal  trial  there  were  still  a  thousand  pounds 
or  two  waiting  for  this  needy  butcher. 

Yet  he  never  came  into  the  witness-box,  and  his 
absence  killed  the  Claimant's  defence. 

Imbeciles  are  now  after  all  these  years,  invited  to 
believe  he  kept  awaj^  on  both  occasions  merely  because 
he  had  committed  some  crime  in  Australia.  This  is 
bosh.  There  is  no  warrant  out  against  Arthur  Orton  in 
Australia.  And  if  suspected  of  a  crime  there,  he  was 
clearly  safer  in  England  than  there.  Had  he  appeared 
at  either  trial,  his  evidence  would  have  been  simply  this. 
^^  I  am  Arthur  Orton,  son  of  George  Orton :  my  brothers 
are  so-and-so,  my  sisters  are  so-and-so.  You  can  confront 
them  with  me." 

Outside  this  straight  line  hostile  counsel  could  not  by 
the  rules  of  the  court  cross-examine  so  narrow  and  inof- 


140  READIANA. 

fensive  a  deponent;  or  if  they  did  he  need  not  answer 
them.  No  Judge  in  England  would  fail  to  tell  him  so. 
But  the  truth  is  that  there  was  never  a  counsel  against 
him,  who  would  have  made  matters  worse  by  a  wild 
cross-examination.  They  would  have  thrown  up  their 
Orton  case  that  moment,  and  merely  persisted  that  the 
Claimant  was  not  Tichborne.  Onlj^,  as  they  had  com- 
mitted themselves  to  both  theories,  his  evidence  would 
have  been  death  to  one,  and  sickness  to  the  other. 

The  Claimant  and  his  counsel  knew  all  this,  yet  they 
made  no  effort  to  show  Arthur  Orton  to  either  jury, 
though  there  was  money  enough  to  tempt  him  into  the 
witness-box  a  dozen  times  over. 

The  only  real  difficulty  was  to  show  him  at  Nisi  Prius 
except  in  the  skin  of  the  plaintiff,  and  to  show  him  at 
the  Central  Criminal  Court  except  in  the  skin  of  the 
defendant.  Years  have  rolled  on,  but  that  difficulty 
remains  insuperable.  Even  now  Arthur  Orton's  appear- 
ance out  of  the  Claimant's  skin  would  shake  one  limb  of 
the  verdict,  and  also  create  revulsion  of  feeling  enough 
to  relieve  the  Claimant  of  his  second  term  of  imprison- 
ment. But  neither  pay,  nor  the  money  that  is  still  wait- 
ing for  him,  nor  the  public  acclamations  that  he  knows 
would  hail  him,  can  drag  Arthur  Orton  to  light  except 
in  the  skin  of  the  defendant.  And  so  it  will  be  till 
sham  Castro,  sham  Stephens,  sham  Tichborne,  and  real 
Orton  all  die  at  one  and  the  same  moment  in  the  skin  of 
the  Claimant.  After  all  these  years  and  all  these  rea- 
sons for  appearing,  no  man  —  whatever  he  may  pretend 
—  really  believes  in  his  heart  that  Arthur  Orton  will 
ever  appear  to  us  except  in  the  skin  of  the  Claimant. 

15.  I  forgot  to  note  in  its  place  a  remarkable  coinci- 
dence.    After  several  interviews  with  Gibbes  and  some 


THE    DOCTRINE    OF     COINCrDENCES.  141 

correspondence  with  Lady  Tichborne,  but  whilst  his 
knowledge  of  Tichborne  affairs  was  still  very  confined, 
it  was  thought  advisable  by  his  friends  that  the  Claimant 
should  make  a  statutory  declaration.  He  made  one  ac- 
cordingly in  the  character  of  Roger  Tichborne,  and  by 
this  time  he  had  learned  the  date  of  Roger^s  birth,  and 
landed  him  at  Melbourne,  June  24th,  1854.  But,  being 
still  ignorant  when  Roger  sailed  on  his  last  voyage,  viz., 
1st  March,  1853,  and  in  La  Pauline,  he  declared  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"Heft  England  in  the  Jessie  Miller,  28th  November, 
1852."  Now,  in  point  of  fact,  Arthur  Orton  sailed  — 
while  Tichborne  was  at  Upton  —  in  the  Middleton  ;  but 
he  sailed  28th  November,  1852,  which  is  a  coincidence ; 
and  the  Jessie  Miller  is  a  ship  unknown  to  Roger  Tich- 
borne, but  well  known  to  Arthur  Orton,  for  he  sailed  in 
her  from  Valparaiso  in  1851. 

Subsequently,  having  declared  he  was  picked  up  at 
sea  by  the  Ospreij,  and  carried  into  Melbourne,  he  was 
asked  for  the  name  of  his  principal  benefactor,  the  cap- 
tain, and  of  the  other  kind  souls  who  had  saved  him,  fed 
him,  etc.,  for  three  months,  and  earned  his  eternal  grati- 
tude ;  all  he  could  recall  was  Lewis  Owen,  or  Owen 
Lewis.  Now  Arthur  Orton's  ship,  the  Middleton,  con- 
tained two  persons,  one  Lewis  and  one  Owen.  So  here 
we  find  him  dragging  into  his  "  voyages  imaginaires  "  of 
Tichborne,  true  particulars  of   two  voyages  by  Arthur 

Orton. 

Your  readers,  especially  those  who  have  paid  me  the 
compliment  of  drawing  the  circle  with  radii  converging 
to  one  centre,  can  now  fill  the  interstices  of  those  radii, 
and  so  possess  a  map  of  the  fifteen  heterogeneous,  and 
independent,    coincidences    converging    from    different 


142  READIANA. 

quarters  of  the  globe,  and  different  cities,  towns,  and 
streets,  and  also  from  different  departments  of  fact, 
material,  moral,  and  psychological,  towards  one  central 
point,  that  this  man  is  Arthur  Orton.  Then,  if  you  like, 
apply  the  exhaustive  method,  of  which  Euclid  is  fond  in 
his  earlier  propositions.  Fit  the  fifteen  coincidences  on 
to  Roger  Tichborne  if  you  can.  If  this  is  too  impossible, 
try  them  on  Castro  the  Chilian,  or  Stephens,  the  man  who 
dropped  down  on  Wapping  from  the  sky. 

You  will  conclude  with  Euclid,  "  in  the  same  way  it 
can  be  proved  that  no  other  person  except  Arthur  Orton 
is  the  true  centre  of  this  circle  of  coincidences." 

My  .subject  proper  ends  here;  but  with  your  permis- 
sion I  will  add  a  short  letter  correcting  the  false  impres- 
sion conveyed  to  the  judges  by  defendant's  counsel,  that 
the  famous  Irish  case  of  James  Annesley  was  a  prece- 
dent favourable  to  the  Claimant.  I  will  also  ask  leave 
to  comment  upon  the  question  whether  the  extreme  term 
of  imprisonment  under  the  Act  ought  to  be  inflicted,  and 
also  that  term  repeated ;  for  false  oaths  sworn  by  tke 
same  individual  in  the  course  of  a  single  litigation. 

I  am, 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHAELES   EEADE. 


SUPPLEMENTAL   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  The  ordinary  features  of  a  trial  are  repeated 
ad  infinitum  ;  but  now  and  then,  say  once  in  a  hundred 
remarkable  trials,  comes  an  intellectual  phenomenon  — 

There  is  at  the  disposal  of  the  Plaintiff's  counsel,  or 
the  Defendant's,  a  friendly  witness,  whose  evidence  to 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  COINCrDENCES.     143 

some  vital  point  ought  to  carry  far  more  weight,  if  be- 
lieved, than  any  other  person's  evidence :  yet  that  friendly 
witness  is  not  called.  Let  a  vital  point  of  the  case  be 
matter  of  direct  and  absolute  knowledge  to  A,  but  only 
matter  of  strong  belief  or  conviction  to  B,  C,  and  D,  A 
is  then,  as  regards  that  vital  matter,  the  principle  wit- 
ness, and  all  B,  C,  and  D,  can  do  is  to  corroborate  in  a 
small  degree  the  higher  evidence  of  A.  Then,  if  A  is 
not  called,  this  suppression  casts  utter  discredit  upon  the 
inferior  witnesses,  who  are  called,  and  upon  the  whole 
case. 

The  reason  is  obvious  to  all  persons  acquainted  with 
litigation. 

Verdicts  are  obtained,  and,  above  all,  held,  by  the  evi- 
dence alone.  Witnesses  are  not  allowed  to  go  into  the 
box  without  consent  of  counsel.  Counsel  are  consulted 
behind  the  scenes  as  to  what  witnesses  are  necessary  to 
the  case,  and  may  be  safely  shown  to  the  jury,  and 
trusted  to  the  ordeal  of  cross-examination.  If  then  an 
able  counsel  withholds  his  principal  witness  from  the 
jury,  he  throws  dirt  upon  his  own  case ;  but  he  is  not 
the  man  to  throw  dirt  upon  his  own  case  except  to  escape 
a  greater  evil. 

Now,  what  greater  evil  than  throwing  dirt  upon  his 
case  can  there  be  ? 

Only  one,  —  his  principal  witness  is  always  the  very 
witness,  who  may  kill  his  case  on  the  spot,  either  by 
breaking  down  under  cross-examination,  or  in  some  other 
way,  which  a  wary  counsel  foresees. 

Therefore,  when  either  suitor  through  his  counsel  does 
not  call  his  principal  witness,  the  case  is  always  rotten. 
History  offers  no  example  to  the  contrary,  and  only  one 
apparent  example,  which  better  information  corrected. 


144  READIANA. 

In  fact,  whenever  with  evidence  against  him,  an  able 
counsel  dares  not  call  his  principal  witness,  the  court 
might  save  time  and  verbiage  by  giving  the  verdict 
against  him  without  any  more  palaver.  Such  a  verdict 
would  always  stand. 

You  have  a  correspondent,  who  cannot  see  the  superi- 
ority of  indisputable  coincidences,  to  "Jack  swears  that 
Jill  says,"  and  even  to  direct  evidence  contradicted  by 
direct  evidence.  I  will  give  this  gentleman  one  more 
chance.  Does  he  think  that  all  judges  are  fools,  ex 
officio,  and  all  jurymen  idiots  by  the  effect  of  the  sheriff's 
summons  ?  If  not,  let  him  consult  that  vast  experience 
of  trials  he  must  possess,  or  he  would  hardly  have  the 
presumption  to  teach  me  how  to  sift  legal  evidence,  and 
let  him  ask  himself  did  he  ever  know  a  judge  and  a 
jury,  who  went  Avith  any  suitor,  that  dared  not  call  his 
principal  witness. 

I  know  one  case,  but  the  verdict  was  upset.  Does  he 
know  a  single  case?  I  doubt  it.  I  will  give  one  ex- 
ample out  of  thousands  to  the  contrary,  which  I  had 
from  the  lips  of  a  very  popular  writer,  beloved  by  all 
who  knew  him,  the  late  Mr.  Lever.  It  was  a  reminis- 
cence of  his  youth.  At  some  county  assize  in  Ireland, 
counsel  called  the  sort  of  witnesses  I  have  defined  above, 
as  B,  C,  and  D,  but  did  not  call  witness  A.  The^  judge 
was  a  good  lawyer,  but  not  polished,  having  been  born  a 
peasant;  but  had  none  the  less  influence  with  country 
juries  for  that,  perhaps  rather  more.  He  objected  bluntly 
to  this  as  waste  of  time,  and  said  the  jury  would  expect 
to  see  witness  A,  and  the  sooner  the  better. 

"  My  Lord,"  says  the  counsel,  "  I  must  be  permitted 
to  conduct  my  case  according  to  my  own  judgment." 

The    judge    raised    no    objection;    only   in   return  he 


THE    DOCTRIXE    OF    COINCIDENCES.  145 

claimed   his  right,  which  was  to  read  a  newspaper  so 
long  as  the  case  was  so  conducted. 

When  counsel  had  had  their  say,  my  lord  came  out  of 
his  journal,  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  jury,  and  summed  up. 
My  deceased  friend  gave  me  every  syllable  of  his  sum- 
ming up,  and  here  it  is  :  — 

The  Shortest  Summing-up  ox  Record. 

The  Judge :  "  He  didn't  call  his  principal  witness. 
Wee-y-Wheet  ! " 

This  wee-y-wheet,  hitherto  written  for  archaeological 
reasons  "Pheugh,"  was  a  long,  ploughman's  whistle, 
with  which  my  lord  pointed  his  summing  up,  and  such  is 
the  power  of  judicious  brevity  falling  on  people  possessed 
of  common  sense,  that  the  jury  delivered  their  verdict 
like  a  shot  against  the  ingenious  suitor,  who  did  not  call 
his  principal  witness.  It  was  in  this  same  country, 
nevertheless,  that,  on  the  single  occasion  I  have  referred 
to,  a  jury  gave  the  verdict  to  the  party  who  did  not  call 
his  principal  witness. 

It  was  the  great  case  of  Campbell  Craig  versus  Richard 
Earl  of  Anglesey.  Craig,  in  this  cause,  was  a  mere  in- 
strument. James  Annesley,  claiming  the  lands  and  title 
of  Anglesey,  leased  a  farm  to  Craig.  Anglesey  expelled 
Craig.  Craig  sued  Anglesey  as  lessee  of  James  Annes- 
ley, and  then  disappeared  from  the  proceedings.  James 
Annesley,  who  had  thirteen  years  before  been  kidnapped 
by  this  defendant,  and  sent  out  to  the  colonies,  took  these 
indirect  proceedings  as  the  son  and  heir  of  Lord  and  Lady 
Altham,  to  whose  lands  and  title  had  succeeded,  first  a 
most  respectable  nobleman,  the  Earl  of  Anglesey,  and, 
on  his  decease,  his  brother,  the  said  Richard  Annesley, 
both  these  succeeding  Lord  Altham  in  turn  by  apparent 


146  KEADIANA. 

default  of  direct  issue.  James  Annesley  therefore  had 
only  to  prove  his  legitimacy,  as  clearly  as  he  proved  this 
very  defendant  had  kidnapped  him  by  force  —  and  the 
estates  were  his. 

Now  both  parties  agreed  that  James  Annesley  was  the 
son  of  Lord  Altham :  but  the  defendant .  said  James 
Annesley's  mother  was  not  Lady  Altham,  but  one  Joan 
Landy,  a  servant  in  Lord  Altham's  house,  who  nursed 
him  from  his  birth,  not  in  Lord  Altham's  house,  but  a 
cabin  hard  by,  where  he  was  admitted  to  have  lived  with 
her  fifteen  months.  There  was  no  parish  register  to 
settle  the  matter,  and  Lady  Altham,  an  Englishwoman, 
driven  out  of  the  country  many  years  before  by  her  hus- 
band's brutality,  had  died  in  England,  and  never  men- 
tioned in  England  that  she  had  a  son  in  Ireland. 

The  plaintiff  called  a  cloud  of  second-class  witnesses, 
but  he  could  not  be  got  to  call  Joan  Landy,  who  had  such 
an  absolute  knowledge  whether  the  boy  was  her  child, 
or  her  nursling,  as  nobody  else  could  have. 

Defendant's  counsel,  Prime-Serjeant  Malone,  one  of  the 
greatest  forensic  reasoners  the  British  Empire  has  pro- 
duced, dwelt  strongly  upon  the  plaintiff's  conduct  in  not 
showing  this  witness  to  the  jury. 

Here  is  his  general  position  —  "  It  is  a  rule  that  every 
case  ought  to  be  proved  by  the  best  testimony  the  nature 
of  the  thing  will  admit,  and  this  Joan  Landy  was  the 
very  best  witness  that  could  have  been  produced  on  the 
side  of  the  plaintiff."  He  then  showed  this  without  any 
difficulty,  and  afterwards  made  rather  an  extraordinary 
and  significant  statement.  "  The  counsel  on  the  other 
side  did  very  early  in  this  case  promise  we  should  see 
her  :  only,  as  she  was  the  person  that  was  to  wind  up  the 
case,  she  was  to  be  the  plaintiff's  last  witness,  and  this 


THE    DOCTRDsE     OF    COINCIDENCES.  147 

was  the  reason  given  for  not  producing  her  till  the  trial 
was  near  an  end."  He  adds  that  having  kept  her  out  of 
court  on  this  pretence,  they  now  shifted  their  ground 
and  professed  not  to  call  her,  "  because  she  was  a  weak 
woman,  and  might  forget  or  be  put  off  the  thread  of  her 
story." 

This  last  theory  he  exposes  with  that  admirable  logic 
I  find  in  all  his  recorded  speeches,  and  urges  that  the 
plaintiff's  counsel  were  simply  afraid  to  subject  their 
principal  witness  to  the  ordeal  of  cross-examination. 
The  three  judges  —  for  it  was  a  trial  at  bar  —  all  ig- 
nored this  strong  point  for  the  defence,  and  the  jury 
steered  themselves  through  a  mass  of  contradictory  evi- 
dence by  an  unsafe  inference  —  the  defendant  had  kid- 
napped the  boy,  and  therefore  the  defendant,  who  as 
Lord  Altham's  brother,  must  have  known  all  about  the 
matter,  had  shown  by  his  actions  that  he  knew  him  to 
be  legitimate. 

James  Annesley  got  the  verdict.  But  the  soundness 
of  Malone's  reasoning  was  soon  demonstrated.  A  bill  of 
exceptions  was  tendered,  and  admitted,  and  pending  its 
discussion,  James  Annesley's  case  was  upset  in  a  crimi- 
nal trial.  His  impetuous  friends  indicted  Mary  Heath, 
a  main  pillar  of  the  defence,  for  perjury.  She  was  ably 
defended,  and  destroyed  her  accuser.*  She  brought 
home  several  perjuries  to  some  of  James  Annesley's 
witnesses,  and  to  the  whole  band  of  them  in  one  vital 
matter.  They  had  sworn  in  concert  that  the  boy  was 
christened  on  a  certain  day  at  Dunmore,  his  godmother 
being  Mrs.  Pigot,  and  one  of  his  godfathers  Sergeant 
Cuff.  Well,  Mary  Heath  proved  that  Mrs.  Pigot  was 
nursing  her  husband  with  a  broken  leg  100  miles  off, 

«  See  The  King  v.  Mary  Heath,  published  in  pamphlet  form. 


148  READIANA. 

and  showed  by  the  records  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  that 
Sergeant  Cuff  moved  the  Court  that  very  day  in  person, 
and  in  Dublin,  100  miles  from  Dunmore.  After  this 
James  Annesley's  case  got  blown  more  and  more.  The 
judges  would  not  act  on  that  verdict,  and  the  Court  of 
Chancery  restrained  him  from  taking  fresh  proceedings 
of  a  similar  nature  in  the  county  Wexford.  Public 
opinion  turned  dead  against  him.  He  was  horse-whipped 
on  the  Curragh  by  the  defendant,  and  showed  his  plebeian 
origin,  by  taking  it  like  a  lamb.  Growing  contempt  drove 
him  out  of  Ireland,  and  he  lived  in  England  upon  his 
English  connections,  and  fell  into  distress.  His  last 
public  act  was  to  raise  a  subscription  at  Richmond.  This 
appears  either  in  the  ^'  Annual  Register "  or  the  "  Gen- 
tleman's Magazine  "  of  the  day  —  I  forget  which  —  but 
distinctly  remember  reading  it  in  one  or  other  of  those 
repertories. 

His  successful  defendant  outlived  him,  and  held  the 
title  of  Anglesey,  and  the  Irish  and  English  estates,  till 
his  death.  After  that  he  gave  some  trouble,  because  he 
had  practised  trigamy  with  such  skill,  that  the  English 
peers  could  not  find  out  who  was  the  legitimate  heir  to 
his  earldom.  The  Irish  peers,  with  the  help  of  the  logi- 
cal Malone,  cracked  the  nut  in  Ireland,  and  so  saved  the 
Irish  titles.  In  this  discussion  James  Annesley's  pre- 
tensions were  referred  to,  hut  only  as  an  extinct  matter 
and  a  warning  to  juries  not  to  go  by  ji^ejudice  against 
evidence.  See  the  minutes  of  the  proceedings  before  the 
Irish  Lords,  piiblished  at  Dublin  by  David  Hay,  1773, 
p.  19,  and  elsewhere. 

It  certainly  is  curious  that  both  counsel  for  the  Claim- 
ant Orton  should  have  been  ignorant  how  the  famous 
case   of  James   Annesley  terminated,  and   should   have 


THE    DOCTEDSTE     OF     COINCIDENCES.  149 

cited  it  in  support  of  Orton ;  curious  that  both  the 
judges  should  have  submitted  to  so  singular  an  error. 

However,  there  is  a  real  parallel  between  the  cases^ 
though  not  what  the  learned  counsel  imagined.  1st. 
James  Annesley  was  either  an  impostor  or  the  tool  of 
impostors,  and  Arthur  Orton  is  an  impostor.  2nd.  James 
Annesley's  counsel  dared  not  call  his  principal  witness, 
Joan  Landy,  and  Arthur  Orton's  counsel  dared  not  call 
his  principal  witnesses,  viz.,  the  sisters  of  Arthur  Orton. 
Who,  in  this  world,  could  settle  the  Orton  question  with 
one  half  the  authority  of  these  two  ladies  ? 

It  was  only  to  call  them  and  let  them  look  at  the 
Claimant,  and  swear  he  was  not  Arthur  Orton  —  and 
stand  cross-examination. 

"Why  was  this  not  done  ?  Withholding  them  from 
the  jury  threw  dirt  on  all  the  other  witnesses,  who  could 
only  swear  to  the  best  of  their  belief,  or  offer  reasons, 
not  pure  evidence.  » 

The  comments  of  Serjeant  Malone  on  the  absence  of 
Joan  Landy  from  the  witness-box,  Craig  v.  Anglesey, 
322,  all  apply  here  ;  so  does  the  ploughman's  whistle 
of  that  sagacious  judge ;  who  economised  the  time  of 
the  court.  It  is  not  that  the  value  of  these  ladies'  evi- 
dence is  not  known.  They  have  been  got  to  sign  affida- 
vits that  the  man  is  not  their  brother.  Why  with  this 
strong  disposition  to  serve  him  could  they  not  be  trusted 
to  the  ordeal  of  an  open  court  ?  Serjeant  Malone  puts 
it  down  to  dread  of  cross-examination.  There  is,  how- 
ever, another  thing  on  the  cards  which  naturally  escapes 
a  lawyer,  for  their  minds  are  not  prepared  for  unusual 
things. 

Lord  and  Lady  Altham  were  both  very  dark.  James 
Annesley  was  fair.     Now,  suppose  Joan  Landy  was  fair, 


150  READIANA. 

and  otherwise  like  the  plaintiff,  whom  we  now  know  to 
have  been  her  child  ?  Annesley's  counsel  may  have 
been  afraid  to  show  her  to  the  eyes  of  the  jury,  and  her 
son  sitting  in  their  sight,  as  the  evidence  of  John  Purcell 
shows  he  was. 

Old  George  Orton  is  said  to  have  marked  all  his 
children,  including  the  Claimant,  pretty  strongly.  Sup- 
pose these  two  sisters  are  like  George  Orton,  and  the 
Claimant,  sworn  to  be  like  George  Orton,  is  also  like 
these  sisters,  this  would  be  a  reason  for  showing  the 
public  their  handwriting  to  a  statement,  and  not  show- 
ing a  jury  their  faces.  Between  this  and  the  dread  of 
cross-examination  lies  the  key  to  the  phenomenon. 

He  didn't  call  his  principal  witness.      Wee-y-wheet ! 

Enough  has  been  said,   I  hope,  to  reconcile  men  of 

sense  to  the  verdicts  of  two  juries.     The   sentence  is 

quite   another  matter.     I  do  not  approve   it,  and  will 

give  my  reasons  in  a  short  letter,  my  last  upon  the  whole 

subject. 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHAKLES   EEADE. 


OUR   DAEK   PLACES.  151 


OUR  DARK  PLACES. 

To  THE  Gentlemen  of  the  Press. 

No.  1. 
.     Gentlemen, 

On  Friday  last,  a  tale  was  brought  to  me  that  a 
sane  prisoner  had  escaped*  from  a  private  madhouse,  had 
just  baffled  an  attempt  to  recapture  him  by  violent  entry 
into  a  dwelling-house,  and  was  now  hiding  in  the 
suburbs. 

The  case  was  grave  :  the  motives  alleged  for  his  incar- 
ceration were  sinister ;  but  the  interpreters  were  women, 
and  consequently  partisans,  and  some,  though  not  all, 
the  parties  concerned  on  the  other  side,  bear  a  fair  char- 
acter. Humanity  said  "  look  into  the  case  !  "  Pru- 
dence said,  "  look  at  it  on  both  sides."  I  insisted,  there- 
fore, on  a  personal  interview  with  Mr. .     This  was 

conceded,  and  we  spent  two  hours  together  :  all  which 
time  I  was  of  course  testing  his  mind  to  the  best  of  my 
ability. 

I  found  him  a  young  gentleman  of  a  healthy  com- 
plexion, manner. v?*/",  but  not  what  one  would  call  ex- 
cited. I  noticed  however  that  he  liked  to  fidget  string, 
and  other  trifles  between  his  finger  and  thumb  at  times. 
He  told  me  his  history  for  some  years  past,  specifying 
the  dates  of  several  events :  he  also  let  me  know  he  had 
been  subject  for  two  years  to  fits,  which  he  described  to 
me  in   full.     I  recognised    the  character  of   these   fits. 


152  EEADIANA. 

His  conversation  was  sober  and  reasonable.  But  had  I 
touched  the  exciting  theme  ?  We  all  know  there  is  a 
class  of  madmen  who  are  sober  and  sensible  till  the  one 
false  chord  is  struck.     I  came  therefore  to  that  delusion 

which  was  the  original  ground  of 's  incarceration  ; 

his  notion  that  certain  of  his  relations  are  keeping  money 
from  him  that  is  his  due. 

This  was  the  substance  of  his  hallucination  as  he  re- 
vealed it  to  me.  His  father  was  member  of  a  iirm  with 
his  uncle  and  others.  Shortly  before  his  death  his 
father  made  a  will  leaving  him  certain  personalities, 
the  interest  of  £5,000,  and,  should  he  live  to  be  twenty- 
four,  the  principal  of  ditto,  and  the  reversion,  after  his 
mother's  death,  of  another  considerable  sum. 

Early  last  year  he  began  to  inquire  why  the  principal 
due  to  him  was  not  paid.  His  uncle  then  told  him  there 
were  no  assets  to  his  father's  credit,  and  never  had  been. 
On  this,  he  admits,  he  wrote  "  abominably  passionate  " 
letters,  and  demanded  to  inspect  the  books.  This  was 
refused  him,  but  a  balance-sheet  was  sent  him,  which 
was  no  evidence  to  his  mind,  and  did  not  bear  the  test 
of  Addition,  being  £40,000  out  on  the  evidence  of  its 
own  figures.  This  was  his  tale,  which  might  be  all  bosh 
for  aught  I  could  tell. 

Not  being  clever  enough  to  distinguish  truth  from 
fancy  by  divination,  I  took  cab,  and  off  to  Doctors' 
Commons,  determined  to  bring  some  of  the  above  to 
book. 

Well,  gentlemen,  I  found  the  will,  and  I  discovered 
that  my  maniac  has  understated  the  interest  he  takes 
under  it.  I  also  find,  as  he  told  me  I  should,  his  uncle's 
name  down  as  one  of  the  witnesses  to  the  will.  Item, 
I  made  a  little  private  discovery  of  my  own,  viz.,  that 


OUE    DARK    PLACES.  153 

is  residuary  legatee,  subject  to  his  mother's  life  in- 
terest, and  that  cell  his  interest  under  the  will  goes  to 
five  relations  of  the  generation  above  him  should  he 
die  intestate. 

I  now  came  to  this  conclusion,  which  I  think  you  will 

share  with  me,  that 's  delusion  may  or  may  not  be 

an  error,  but  cannot  be  a  hallucination,  since  it  is  simply 
good  logic  founded  on  attested  facto.  For  on  which 
side  lies  the  balance  of  credibility  ?  The  father  makes 
a  solemn  statement  that  he  has  'chousands  of  pounds  to 
bequeath.  The  uncle  assents  in  writing  while  the  father 
is  alive,  but  gives  the  father  and  himself  the  lie  when 
thfe  father  is  no  longer  on  earth  to  contradict  him.  They 
say  in  law,  "  Alle[/ans  contraria  non  est  audieridusJ^ 

Being  now  satisfied  that  the  soi-disant  delusion  might 
be  error  but  could  not  be  aberration  of  judgment,  I  sub- 
jected him  to  a  new  class  of  proofs.  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  face  medical  men  of  real  eminence,  and  not  in 
league  with  madhouse  doctors.  ^^  He  would  with  pleas- 
ure. It  was  his  desire."  We  went  first  to  Dr.  Dickson, 
who  has  great  experience,  and  has  effected  some  remark- 
able cures  of  mania.  Dr.  Dickson,  as  may  well  be  sup- 
posed, did  not  take  as  many  seconds  as  I  had  taken  hours. 
He  laughed  to  scorn  the  very  notion  that  the  man  was 
mad.  "He  is  as  sane  as  we  are,"  said  Dr.  Dickson, 
From  Bolton  Street  we  all  three  go  to  Dr.  Euttledge, 
Hanover  Square,  and,  on  the  road,  Dr.  Dickson  and  I 
agree  to  apply  a  test  to  Dr.  Euttledge,  which  it  would 
have  been  on  many  accounts  unwise  to  apply  to  a  man 

of  ordinary  skill.     Dr.  Dickson  introduced and  me 

thus  :  —  "  One  of  these  is  insane,  said  to  be.  Which  is 
it  ?  "  Dr.  Euttledge  took  the  problem  mighty  coolly, 
sat  down  by  me  first,  with  an  eye  like  a  diamond  i  it 


154  READIANA. 

went  slap  into  my  marrow-bone.  Asked  me  catching 
questions,  touched  my  wrist,  saw  my  tongue,  and  said 
quietly,  "  This  one  is   sane.''     Then   he  went    and  sat 

down  by and  drove  an  eye  into   him,  asked   him 

catching  questions,  made  him  tell  him  in  order  all  he  had 
done  since  seven  o'clock,  felt  pulse,  saw  tongue :  "  This 
one  is  sane  too."     Dr.  Dickson  then  left  the  room,  after 

telling   him    what   was  's   supposed   delusion,  and 

begged  him  to  examine  him  upon  it.     The  examination 

lasted  nearly  half  an  hour,  during  which related 

the  circumstances  of  his  misunderstanding,  his  capture, 
and  his  escape,  with  some  minuteness.  The  result  of 
all  this  was  a  certificate  of  sanity ;  copy  of  which  I  sub- 
join. The  original  can  be  seen  at  my  house  by  any  lady 
or  gentleman  connected  with  literature  or  the  press. 

"  We  hereby  certify  that  we  have  this  day,  both  con- 
jointly and  separately,  examined  Mr. and  we  find 

him  to  be  in  every  respect  of  sound  mind,  and  labouring 
under  no  delusion  whatever.     Moreover  we  entertain  a 

very  strong  opinion  that  the  said  Mr. has  at  no 

period  of  his  life  laboured  under  insanity. 

"  He  has  occasionally  had  epileptic  fits. 

"  (Signed)  James  Euttledge,  M.D. 

S.  Dickson,  M.D. 
<^  19,  George  Street,  Hanover  Square, 
^th  August,  1858." 

This  man,  whose  word  I  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  says 
the  keeper  of  the  madhouse  told  him  he  should  never  go 
out  of  it.  This,  if  true,  implies  the  absence  of  all  inten- 
tion to  cure  him.  He  was  a  customer,  not  a  patient :  he 
was  not  in  a  hospital,  but  in  a  gaol,  condemned  to  im- 
prisonment for  life,  a  sentence  so  awful  that  no  English 


OUR   DAKK   PLACES.  155 

judge  has  ever  yet  had  the  heart  to  pronounce  it  upon  a 

felon.     is  an  orphan. 

The  law  is  too  silly,  and  one-sidedj  and  slow,  to  protect 
him  against  the  prompt  and  daring  men  who  are  even 
now  hunting  him.  But  while  those  friends  the  God  of 
the  fatherless  has  raised  him  concert  his  defence,  you 
can  aid  justice  greatly  by  letting  daylight  in.  I  will  ex- 
plain why  this  is  in  my  next. 

I  am,  Gentlemen, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHARLES  READE. 
Garrick  Club, 

10th  August,  1858. 

No.  n 

Gentlemen, 

In  England  "Justice"  is  the  daughter  of 
"Publicity.^'  In  this,  as  in  every  other  nation,  deeds 
of  villany  are  done  every  day  in  kid  gloves  ;  but  they 
can  only  be  done  on  the  sly :  here  lies  our  true  moral 
eminence  as  a  nation.  Our  judges  are  an  honour  to 
Europe,  not  because  Nature  has  cut  them  out  from  a 
different  stuff  from  Italian  Judges :  this  is  the  dream  of 
babies :  it  is  because  they  sit  in  courts  open  to  the  pub- 
lic, and  "  sit  next  day  in  the  newspapers^  *  Legislators 
who  have  not  the  brains  to  appreciate  the  Public,  and 
put  its  sense  of  justice  to  a  statesmanlike  use,  have  yet 
an  instinctive  feeling  that  it  is  the  great  safeguard  of 
the  citizen.  Bring  your  understandings  to  bear  on  the 
following  sets  of  propositions  in  lunacy  law.  First 
grand  division  —  Maxims  laid  down  by  Shelf ord  :  — 

*  We  are  indebted  to  Lord  Mansfield  for  this  phrase. 


156  KEADIANA. 

"  A.  The  law  requires  satisfactory  evidence  of  insanity. 
B.  Insanity  in  the  eye  of  the  law  is  nothing  less  than  the 
jyrolonged  departure,  without  an  adequate  external  cause, 
from  the  state  of  feeling,  and  modes  of  thinking,  usual 
to  the  individual  when  in  health,  c.  The  burthen  of 
proof  of  insanity  lies  on  those  asserting  its  existence. 
D.  Control  over  persons  represented  as  insane  is  not  to 
be  assumed  without  necessity,  e.  Of  all  evidence,  that 
of  medical  men  ought  to  be  riven  with  the  greatest  care, 
and  received  with  the  utmo:t  ca'ition.  f.  The  medical 
man's  evidence  should  not  merely  pronounce  the  party 
insane  but  give  sufficient  reasons  for  thinking  so.  For 
this  reason  it  behoves  him  to  have  investigated  ac. 
curately  the  collateral  circum::;tances.  g.  The  impu- 
tations of  friends  or  relations,  &c.p  are  not  entitled  to 
any  weight  or  consideration  In  inquiries  of  this  nature, 
but  ought  to  be  disniiGsed  from  ihe  minds  of  the  judge 
and  jury,  who  are  bound  to  form  their  conclusions  from 
impartial  evidence  of  facts,  and  not  to  be  led  astray  by 
any  such  fertile  sources  of  error  and  injtisticeJ^ 

The  second  class  of  propositions  is  well  known  to 
your  readers.  A  relative  has  only  to  buy  two  doctors, 
two  surgeons,  or  even  two  of  those  "whose  poverty 
though  not  their  will  consents,"  and  he  can  clap  in  a 
madhouse  any  rich  old  fellow  that  is  spending  hie  money 
absurdly  on  himself,  instead  of  keeping  it  like  a  wise 
man  for  his  heirs;  or  he  can  lock  up  any  eccentric, 
bodily  afflicted,  croublesome,  account-sifting  young  fel- 
low. 

In  other  words,  the  two  classes  of  people  who  figure 
as  suspected  witnesses  in  one  set  of  clauses,  are  made 
judge,  jury,  and  executioner,  in  another  set  of  clauses, 
one  of  which,  by  a  refinement  of  injustice,  shifts  the 


OTJR   DARK   PLACES. 


157 


burthen  of  proof  from  the  accusers  to  the  accused  in  all 
open  proceedings  subsequent  to  his  wrongful  imprison- 
ment. —  Shelf ord,  56. 

Now  what  is  the  clue  to  this  apparent  contradiction 
_to  this  change  in  the  weathercock  of  legislatoral 
morality  ?  It  is  mighty  simple.  The  maxims,  No.  1, 
are  the  practice  and  principle  that  govern  what  are 
called  ''  Commissions  of  Lunacy.  At  these  the  news- 
paper reporters  are  present.  No.  2  are  the  practice  and 
and  principle  legalised,  where  no  newspaper  reporters 
are  present.     Light  and  darkness. 

Since  then  the  Law  de  Lunatico  has  herself  told  us  that 
she  is  an  idiot  and  a  rascal  when  she  works  in  the  dark, 
but  that  she  is  wise,  cautious,  humane,  and  honest  in  the 
light,  my  orphan  and  myself  should  indeed  be  mad  to 
disregard  her  friendly  hint  as  to  her  double  charac- 
ter. This,  gentlemen,  is  why  we  come  to  you  first :  you 
must  give  us  publicity,  or  refuse  us  justice.  We  will 
go  to  the  Commissioners  in  Lunacy,  but  not  before 
their  turn.  We  dare  not  abjure  experience.^  We  know 
the  Commissioners  :  we  know  them  intus  et  in  cute  ;  we 
know  them  better  than  they  know  themselves.  They 
are  of  two  kinds,  one  kind  I  shall  dissect  elsewhere ; 
the  rest  are  small  men  afidicted  with  a  common  malady, 
a  common-place  conscience. 

These  soldiers  of  Xerxes  won't  do  their  duty  if  they 
can  help  it;  if  they  can't,  they  will.  With  them  jus- 
tice depends  on  Publicity,  and  Publicity  on  you.     Up 

with  the  lash  !  ! 

I  am  now  instructed  by  him  who  has  been  called  mad, 
but  whose  intelligence  may  prove  a  match  for  theirs,  to 
propose  to  his  enemies  to  join  him  in  proving  to  the 
public  that  their  convictions  are  as  sincere  as  his.     The 


158  READIANA. 

wording  of  the  challenge  being  left  to  me,  I  invite  them 
to  an  issue,  thus  :  —  "  My  lads,  you  were  game  to  enter 
a  dwelling-house  kept  by  women,  and  propose  to  break 
open  a  woman's  chamber-door,  till  a  woman  standing  on 
tlie  other  side  with  a  cudgel,  threatened  '  to  split  your 
skulls '  and  that  chilled  your  martial  ardour. 

Vos  etenim  juvenes  animum  geritis  muliebrem 
Ilia  virago  viri. 

"  And  now  you  are  wasting  your  money  (^and  you  will 
want  it  all),  dressing  up  policemen,  setting  spies,  and  in 
short,  doing  the  Venetian  business  in  England ;  and  all 
for  what  ?  You  want  our  orphan's  body.  Well,  it  is 
to  be  had  withoiut  all  this  dirty  manoeuvring,  and  silly 
small  treachery.  Go  to  Jonathan  Weymouth,  Esq.,  of 
Clifford's  Inn.  He  is  our  orphan's  solicitor,  duly  ap- 
pointed and  instructed :  he  will  accept  service  of  a  writ 
cle  lunatico  inquirendo  and  on  the  writ  being  served,  Mr. 
Weymouth  will  enter  into  an  undertaking  with  you  to 
produce  the  body  of  E.  P.  F.  in  court,  to  abide  the  issue 
of  a  daylight  investigation.  If  you  prove  him  mad,  you 
will  take  him  away  with  you  ;  if  you  fail  to  make  him 
out  mad  before  a  disinterested  judge,  at  all  events  you 
will  prove  yourselves  to  be  honest,  though  somewhat 
hard-hearted,  men  and  womenJ^ 

Should  this  proposal  be  accepted,  the  proceedings  of 
our  opponents  will  then  assume  a  respectability  that  is 
wanting  at  present,  and  in  that  case  these  letters  will 
cease.     Sub  judice  lis  erit. 

I  am,  Gentlemen, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHARLES  READE. 


OUR    DARK   PIECES.  159 

No.   III. 

Garrick  Club,   October. 
Gentlemen, 

My  last  letter  concluded  by  inviting  the  person, 
who  had  incarcerated  my  orphan  on  the  plea  of  insanity,- 
to  prove  that,  whether  mistaken  or  not,  he  was  sincere. 
No  such  evidence  has  been  offered.  He  has  therefore 
served  a  writ  upon  this  person,  and  will  proceed  to  trial 
with  all  possible  expedition,  subject  of  course  to  the 
chances  of  demurrer,  or  nonsuit.* 

It  would  not  be  proper  to  say  more,  pendente  lite. 
But,  some  shallow  comments  having  been  printed  else- 
where, it  seems  fair  that  those  Editors,  who  had  the 
humanity,  the  courtesy,  and,  let  me  add,  the  intelligence, 
to  print  my  letters,  should  possess  this  proof  that  their 
columns  have  not  been  trifled  with  by 
Their  obliged 

And  obedient  servant, 

CHAKLES   EEADE. 

No.  ly. 

•*  Cunctando  restituit  rem.** 

Gentlemen, 

When,  four  months  ago,  I  placed  my  orphan 
under  the  wing  of  the  law,  I  hoped  I  had  secured  him 
that  which  is  every  Englishman's  right,  a  trial  by  judge 
and  jury  ;  and  need  draw  no  further  upon  your  justice 
and  your  pity.     I  have  clung  to  this  hope  in  spite  of 

*  Individually  I  entertain  no  apprehension  on  this  score.  The  constitu- 
tional rights  of  Englishmen  are  safe  in  the  hands  of  the  present  judges  ;  and 
trial  by  jury,  in  a  case  of  this  character,  is  one  of  those  rights  —  provided,  of 
course,  the  proper  Defendant  has  been  sued. 


IGO  READIANA. 

iiiuch  sickness  of  heart,  month  after  montli  :  but  at 
last  both  hope  and  faith  are  crushed  in  me,  and  I  am 
forced  to  see,  that  without  a  fresh  infusion  of  publicity, 
my  orphan  has  no  reasonable  hope  of  getting  a  public 
trial,  till  he  shall  stand  with  his  opponents  before  the 
God  of  the  fatherless.  I  do  not  say  this  merely  because 
his  trial  has  been  postponed,  and  postponed,  but  because 
it  has  been  thrice  postponed  on  grounds  that  can  be 
reproduced  three  hundred  times  just  as  easily  as  thrice, 
unless  the  light  of  publicity  is  let  in. 

Let  me  premise  that  the  matters  I  have  to  relate  are 
public  acts,  and  as  proper  for  publication  and  criticism 
as  any  other  judicial  proceedings,  and  that  they  will 
make  the  tour  of  Europe  and  the  United  States  in  due 
course.  When  the  day  of  trial  drew  near  in  "November 
last,  defendant's  attorney  applied  to  have  trial  postponed 
for  a  month  or  two,  for  the  following  sole  reason  :  —  He 
swore,  first,  that  a  Mr.  3  Stars,  dwelling  at  Bordeaux, 
was  a  Avitness  without  whom  defendant  could  not  safely 
proceed  to  trial ;  and  he  swore,  second,  that  said  3  Stars 
had  written  to  him  on  the  18th  November,  that,  owing 
to  an  accident  on  the  railway,  he  was  then  confined  to 
his  room,  and  had  little  hope  of  being  able  to  leave  Bor- 
deaux under  a  month.  No.  1,  you  will  observe,  is  legal 
evidence :  but  No.  2  is  no  approach  towards  legal  evi- 
dence. Nothing  is  here  sworn  to  but  the  fact  that  there 
exists  an  unsworn  statement  by  a  Mr.  3  Stars.  On  this 
demi-semi-affidavit,  unsupported  by  a  particle  of  legal 
evidence,  a  well-meaning  judge,  in  spite  of  a  stiff  remon- 
strance, postponed  the  trial,  nominally  for  one  month, 
really  for  two  months.  I  fear  my  soul  is  not  so  candid 
as  the  worthy  judge's,  for  on  the  face  of  this  document, 
where  he   saw  veracity,  I  saw  disingenuousness,  stand 


OUR   DARK   PLACES.  161 

out  in  alto  relievo.  So  I  set  the  French  police  upon  Mr. 
3  Stars,  and  received  from  the  Prefect  of  La  Gironde  an 
official  document,  a  copy  of  which  is  enclosed  herewith. 
By  it  we  learn,  first,  that  the  accident  or  incident  was 
not  what  plain  men  understand  by  an  accident  on  a  rail- 
way. The  man  hurt  a  leg  getting  down  from  a  railway 
carriage,  just  as  he  might  from  his  own  gig.  Second, 
that  it  was  not  quite  so  recent  as  his  suppression  of  date 
might  lead  a  plain  man  to  presume,  but  was  three  weeks 
old  when  he  wrote  as  above  ;  third,  that  he  must  have 
been  well  long  before  the  9th  of  December,  for,  writing 
on  that  day,  the  Prefect  describes  him  as  having  made 
frequent  excursions  into  Medoc  since  his  incident.  Un- 
fair inaccuracy  once  proved  in  so  important  a  statement, 
all  belief  is  shaken.  In  all  human  probability,  Mr.  3 
Stars  was  convalescent  on  the  18th  November,  viz.,  three 
weeks  after  his  railway  incident.  But  it  is  certain  he 
was  well  on  or  about  the  1st  December,  and  that,  conse- 
quently, he  could  with  ease  have  attended  that  trial, 
which  his  statement  that  he  could  not  move  till  about 
the  18th  December  caused  to  be  put  off  for  two  months. 
What  man  who  knows  the  world  can  help  suspecting 
that  the  arbitrary  period  of  a  month  was  arranged  be- 
tween him  and  the  attorney,  not  so  much  with  reference 
to  the  truth  as  to  the  sittings  of  the  Court  at  Westmin- 
ster upon  special  jury  cases  ? 

So  much  for  adjuring  the  experience  of  centuries,  and 
postponing  an  alleged  lunatic's  trial  for  two  months, 
upon  indirect  testimony  that  would  be  kicked  out  of  a 
County  Court  in  a  suit  for  a  wheelbarrow ;  hearsay  stuc- 
coed, nursery  evidence ;  not  legal  evidence. 

Well,  gentlemen,  the  weary  months  crawled  on,  and 
the  lame,  old,  broken-winded,  loitering  beldame,  British 


1G2  READIANA. 

justice,  hobbled  up  to  the  scratch  again  at  last.  Mr.  3 
Stars  was  now  in  England.  That  sounded  well.  But 
he  soon  showed  us  that  — 

"  Coelum  non  animam  mutant  qui  trans  mare  currunt." 

His  health  still  fluctuated  to  order.  Pretty  well  as  to 
the  wine  trade ;  very  sick  as  to  the  Court  of  Queen's 
Bench.  He  comes  from  Bordeaux  to  London  (and  that 
is  a  good  step),  burning,  we  are  told,  to  attend  the  trial 
at  Westminster.  The  trial  draws  near  :  he  whips  off  — 
to  Hampstead  ?  No ;  —  to  Wales.  Arrived  there,  he 
writes,  in  due  course,  to  his  late  colleague  in  affidavit, 
that  he  can't  travel.  This  time  the  gentleman  that  does 
the  interlocutory  swearing  for  the  defendant  (let  us  call 
him  Fabius),  doubting  whether  the  3  Stars  malady  would 
do  again  by  itself,  associated  with  his  "  malade  affidavit- 
aire  "  two  ladies,  whom,  until  they  compel  me  to  write  a 
fifth  letter,  I  will  call  Mrs.  Plausible  and  Mrs.  Brand. 
Non-legal  evidence  as  before.  Fabius  swears,  not  that 
3  Stars  is  ill ;  that  might  have  been  dangerous  ;  but  that 
3  Stars  says  he  is  ill :  which  is  true.  Item  that  Mrs. 
Brand  cannot  cross  the  ditch  that  parts  France  from 
England,  because  she  has  had  an  operation  performed. 
It  turns  out  to  have  been  tivelve  months  ago.  Item, 
Fabius  swears  that  Mrs.  Plausible  says,  the  little  Plausi- 
bles  have  all  got  scarlatina ;  and,  therefore,  Fabius  sivears 
til  at  Mrs.  Plausible  tJiinks  the  constitutional  rights  of 
the  English  people  ought  to  remain  in  doubt  and  sus- 
pense, in  the  person  of  our  orphan,  till  such  time  as  the 
said  scarlatina  has  left  her  nursery  (and  the  measles  not 
arrived  ?),  "A  tout  bambin  tout  honneur." 

All  which  conjectural  oaths,  and  sworn  conjectures, 
and  nursery  dialectics,  they  took  to  IMr.  Justice  Erie,  of 


OUR   DARK   PLACES.  163 

all  gentlemen  in  the  world  ;  and  moved  to  postpone  the 
trial  indefinitely.  Early  in  the  argument  their  counsel 
having,  I  think,  gone  through  the  schools  at  Oxford, 
took  a  distaste  to  the  Irish  syllogism  that  gleamed  on 
his  brief ;  videlicet,  no  witness  who  has  scarlatina  can 
come  to  Westminster  and  stand  cross-examination  by 
Q.  C.  Little  b,  c,  and  d  are  not  witnesses  but  have  got 
scarlatina. 

Ergo,  capital  A  can't  come  to  Westminster  and  stand 
cross-examination  by  Q.  C. 

Counsel  threw  over  Mrs.  Plausible  and  Hibernian  logic 
generally,  and  stood  on  the  3  Stars  malady,  second 
edition,  and  the  surgical  operation  that  was  only  twelve 
months  old.  But  Mr.  Justice  Erie  declined  to  postpone 
human  justice  till  sickness  and  shamming  should  be  no 
more.  He  refused  to  ignore  the  plaintiff,  held  the  bal- 
ance, and  gave  them  a  just  and  reasonable  delay,  to 
enable  them  to  examine  their  "  malades  affidavitaires  " 
upon  commission.  He  was  about  to  fix  Saturday,  Jan. 
5,  for  the  trial.  They  then  pleaded  hard  for  Monday. 
This  was  referred  to  plaintiffs  attorney,  who  conceded 
that  point.  Having  accepted  this  favour,  which  was 
clearly  a  conditional  one,  and  only  part  of  the  whole 
arrangement,  they  were,  I  think,  bound  by  professional 
good  faith  not  to  disturb  the  compact.  They  held  other- 
wise :  they  instantly  set  to  work  to  evade  Mr.  Justice 
Erie's  order,  by  tinkering  the  Irish  syllogism.  In  just 
the  time  that  it  would  take  to  send  Mrs.  Plausible  a 
letter,  and  say  it  is  no  use  the  little  Plausibles  having 
scarlatina ;  you  must  have  it  yourself,  madam ;  you  had 
better  have  it  by  telegraph  —  Mrs.  Plausible  announces 
the  desired  malady,  but  not  upon  oath.  "  Scarlatina  is 
easily   said."     II  va  sans  dh^e  que  they  don't  venture 


164  EEADIANA. 

before  Mr.  Justice  Erie  again  with  their  tinkered  affida- 
vit. They  slip  down  to  Westminster,  and  surprise  a 
fresh  judge,  who  has  had  no  opportunity  of  watching 
the  rise  and  progress  of  disease.  Their  counsel  reads 
the  soldered  affidavit.  Plaintiff's  counter  affidavits  are 
then  intrusted  to  him  to  read.  What  does  he  do  ?  He 
reads  the  preamble,  but  burks  the  affidavits.  The  effect 
was  inevitable.  Even  bastard  affidavits  cannot  be  met 
by  rhetoric.  They  can  only  be  encountered  by  affidavits. 
Judges  decide,  not  on  phrases,  but  on  the  facts  before 
them.  Plaintiff's  facts  being  silenced,  and  defendant's 
stated,  the  judge  naturally  went  with  defendant,  and 
postponed  the  trial.     (No.  3.) 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  the  last  man  in  the  world  to 
cry  over  spilled  milk.  I  don't  come  to  you  to  tinker  the 
untinkerable  past,  but,  for  the  future,  to  ask  a  limit  to 
injustice  in  its  worst  form,  trial  refused. 

Without  your  help,  this  alleged  lunatic  is  no  nearer 
the  term  of  his  sufferings ;  no  nearer  the  possibility  of 
removing  that  frightful  stigma,  which  is  not  stigma  only, 
but  starvation ;  no  nearer  to  trial  of  his  sanity  by  judge 
and  jury,  than  he  was  four  months  ago.  True,  there  are 
now  three  judges  who  will  not  easily  be  induced  to  im- 
pede the  course  of  justice  in  this  case ;  but  there  are 
other  uninformed  judges  who  may  be  surprised  into  doing 
it  in  general.  Fabius  can  at  any  day  of  any  month  swear 
that  some  male  or  female  witness  says  she  wants  to  come 
into  the  witness-box,  and  can't.  And  so  long  as  "Jack 
swears  that  Jill  says  "  is  confounded  with  legal  evidence, 
on  interlocutory  motions,  justice  can  be  defeated  to  the 
end  of  time,  under  colour  of  postponement.  Gentlemen, 
it  is  a  known  fact  among  lawyers  that,  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  postponement  of  trial  has  no  other  real  object  but 


OUR    DARK   PLACES.  165 

evasion  of  trial  by  tiring  out  the  plaintiff,  or  breaking 
his  heart,  or  ruining  him  in  expenses. 

I  see  little  reason  whatever  to  doubt  that  this  is  a  prin- 
cipal object  here.  Defendants  have  a  long  purse.  Plain- 
tiff is  almost  a  pauper  in  fact,  whatever  he  may  be  in 
law.  Mr.  3  Stars,  sworn  to  as  an  essential  witness,  has 
not  seen  the  boy  for  years.  How  can  he,  therefore,  be  a 
very  essential  witness  to  his  insanity  at  or  about  the 
period  of  his  capture  ?  Dr.  Pillbox  and  Mr.  Sawbones 
must  be  better  cards  so  far  :  in  a  suit  at  law  the  evidence 
of  insanity,  like  that  of  sanity,  cannot  be  spread  out  thin 
over  disjointed  years,  like  the  little  bit  of  butter  on  a 
schoolboy's  bread.  Mr.  3  Stars  may  be  an  evidence  as 
to  figures :  but  then  the  books  are  to  be  in  court  sub- 
poena; and  nobody  listens  much  to  any  of  us  swearing 
arithmetic,  when  a  ledger  is  speaking.  The  lady  I  have 
called  Mrs.  Plausible,  would  not,  in  my  humble  opinion, 
go  into  a  witness-box  if  she  were  paid  a  hundred  pounds 
a  minute.     I  mean  this  anything  but  discourteously. 

I  implore  all  just  and  honest  men,  especially  those  who 
are  in  the  service  of  the  State,  to  try  and  realise  the 
frightful  situation  in  which  postponement  of  trial  keeps 
an  alleged  lunatic.  The  blood-hounds  are  hunting  him 
all  this  time.  There  were  several  men  looking  after  him 
ths  very  last  day  he  lost  his  hopes  of  immediate  trial. 
Suppose  that,  on  unsubstantial  grounds,  and  illegal  evi- 
dence, time  should  be  afforded  to  find  him  out  and  settle 
the  questions  of  fact  and  law,  by  brute  force,  what  com- 
plexion would  these  thoughtless  delays  of  justice  assume 
then  in  the  eye  of  the  nation ;  ay,  and,  to  do  them  justice, 
in  the  consciences  of  those  whose  credulity  would  have 
made  the  blood-hounds  of  a  lunatic  asylum  masters  of  an 
argument  that  has  been  now  for  many  months  referred 


166  READIANA. 

to  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  and  a  special  jury. 
Mind,  the  constitution  has  been  tampered  with  ;  "  habeas 
corpus  "  has  been  suspended  by  the  boobies  that  framed 
the  Lunacy  Acts.  The  judges  have  power  to  impede 
justice,  but  none  to  impede  injustice.  In  these  peculiar 
cases,  I  am  advised,  they  can't  order  a  sane  man  out  of 
a  lunatic  asylum  into  the  witness-box.  Justice  hobbles, 
but  injustice  flies  to  its  mark.  I  declare  to  you  that  I 
live  in  mortal  terror  lest  some  evil  should  befall  this 
man,  under  the  very  wing  of  the  court  —  not  of  course 
from  the  defendant  —  but  from  some  member  or  members 
of  the  gang  of  stupid  ruffians  I  am  assured  are  still  hang- 
ing about  the  skirts  of  the  defence ;  men  some  of  whom 
have  both  bloodshed  and  reasonshed'on  their  hands  al- 
ready. My  very  housemaids  have  been  tampered  with 
to  discover  where  "  the  pursuer,"  as  the  Scotch  call  him, 
is  hiding  and  quaking.  Is  such  an  anomaly  to  be  borne  ? 
Is  a  man  to  be  at  the  same  time  run  from  with  affidavits 
and  chased  with  human  blood-hounds  ?  Is  this  a  state 
of  things  to  hQ prolonged,  without  making  our  system  the 
scorn  and  laughing-stock  of  all  the  citizens  and  la^v;)^ers 
of  Europe  ? 

Fletcher  v.  Fletcher  only  wants  realising.  But  some 
people  are  so  stupid,  they  can  realise  nothing  that  they 
have  not  got  in  their  hands,  their  mouths  or  their  bellies. 
This  is  no  conlmon  case;  no  common  situation.  This 
particular  Englishman  sues  not  merely  for  damages,  but 
to  recover  lost  rights  dearer  far  than  money,  of  which 
rights  he  says  he  is  unjustly  robbed ;  his  right  to  walk 
in  daylight  on  the  soil  of  his  native  land,  without  being 
seized  and  chained  up  for  life  like  a  nigger  or  a  dog ; 
his  footing  in  society,  his  means  of  earning  bread,  and 
his  place  among  mankind.     For  a  lunatic  is  a  beast  in 


OUR   DARK   PLACES.  167 

the  law's  eye  and  society's ;  and  an  alleged  lunatic  is  a 
lunatic  until  a  jury  pronounces  him  sane. 

I  appeal  to  you,  gentlemen,  is  not  such  a  suitor  sacred 
in  all  good  men's  minds  ?  Is  he  not  defendant  as  well 
as  plaintiff?  Why,  his  stake  is  enormous  compared 
with  the  nominal  defendant's  ;  and,  if  I  know  right  from 
wrong,  to  postpone  his  trial  a  fourth  time,  without  a 
severe  necessity,  would  be  to  insult  Divine  justice,  and 
trifle  with  human  misery,  and  shock  the  common  sense 

of  nations. 

I  am. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHAKLES  EEADE. 

With  this  a  copy  is  enclosed  of  the  French  Prefect's 
letter,  and  other  credentials.  These  documents  are  aban- 
doned to  your  discretion. 

Nothing  in  the  above  letter  is  to  be  construed  as  as- 
suming that  the  defendant  has  a  bad  case.  He  may 
have  a  much  better  one  than  the  plaintiff.  I  am  not 
asking  for  the  latter  a  verdict  to  which  he  may  have  no 
right ;  but  a  trial,  to  which  he  has  every  right. 

Bordeaux,  le  9  Decembre,  1858. 

Monsieur, 

Ex  reponse  a  la  lettre  que  vous  m'avez  adressee, 
a  la  date  du  26  Novembre  dernier,  j'ai  I'honneur  de  vous 
transmettre  les  renseignements  qui  m'ont  ete  fournis  sur 
le  S'  Cunliffe,  sujet  anglais. 

Le  S'  Cunliffe  demeure  a  Bordeaux,  rue  Corie,  43.  II 
est  negociant  en  vins  et  parait  jouir  de  I'estime  des  per- 
sonnes  qui  le  connaissent. 

II  est  vrai  qu'un  accident  lui  est  arrive,  il  y  a  un  mois 


168  READIANA. 

et  demi,  sur  le  chemin  cle  fer  ;  il  est  tomb^  en  descendant 
et  s'est  blesse  a  une  jambe ;  par  suite  il  a  garde  le  cliam- 
bre  pendant  quelque  temps,  mais  aujourd'hui  il  parait 
etre  retabli ;  vaqiie  a  ses  occupations  ordinaires  et  fait 
souvent  des  excursions  dans  le  Medoc,  a  quelques  lieues 
de  Bordeaux. 

Kecevez,  Monsieur,  Fassurance  de  ma  parfaite  consi- 
deration, 

Le  Prefet  de  la  Gironde, 
(  Signed) 

A  Monsieur  CHAKLES  READE, 

6,  Bolton  Row,  Mayfair,  Londres. 

In  spite  of  letter  four :  the  trial  was  postponed  twice 
more. 

At  last  it  came  and  is  reported  in  The  Times  of  July  8, 
1859.  The  court  was  filled  with  low  repulsive  faces  of 
madhouse  attendants  and  keepers,  all  ready  to  swear  the 
man  was  insane.  He  was  put  into  the  witness-box,  ex- 
amined and  cross-examined  eight  hours,  and  the  defend- 
ant succumbed  without  a  struggle.  The  coming  damages 
were  compounded  for  an  annuity  of  £100  a  year,  £50 
cash,  and  the  costs. 

As  bearing  upon  this  subject,  my  letter  to  the  Pall 
Mall  Gazette  of  Jan.  17,  1870,  entitled  "  How  Lunatics^ 
Ribs  get  Broken,"  should  be  read.  This  letter  is  now 
reprinted  at  the  beginning  of  Hard  Cash. 


BIGHTS  AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  169 


THE    RIGHTS    AND    THE    WRONGS    OF 

AUTHORS. 

FIRST   LETTER. 
To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Pall  Mall  Gazette." 

Sir,  —  Those,  who  do  not  bestow  sympathy,  have  no 
right  to  ask  it.  But  if  a  man  for  years  has  been  quick 
to  feel,  and  zealous  to  relieve,  his  neighbour's  wrongs, 
he  has  earned  a  right  to  expose  his  own  griefs  and  solicit 
redress.  By  the  same  rule,  should  a  class,  that  has 
openly  felt  and  tried  to  cure  the  wrongs  of  others,  be 
deeply  wronged  itself,  that  class  has  a  strong  claim  to 
be  heard.  For  the  public  and  the  State  to  turn  a  deaf 
ear  would  be  ungrateful,  and  also  impolitic ;  it  would  be 
a  breach  of  the  mutual  compact  that  cements  society, 
and  tend  to  discourage  the  public  virtue  of  that  worthy 
class,  and  turn  its  heart's  milk  to  gall. 

Now,  the  class  "  authors  "  may  be  said  to  rain  sym- 
pathy. That  class  has  produced  the  great  Apostle  of 
Sympathy  in  this  age ;  and  many  of  us  writers  follow  in 
his  steps,  though  we  cannot  keep  up  with  his  stride.  In 
the  last  fifty  years  legislation  and  public  opinion  have 
purged  the  nation  of  many  unjust  and  cruel  things ;  but 
who  began  the  cure  ?  In  most  cases  it  can  be  traced  to 
the  writer's  pen,  and  his  singular  power  and  habit  of 
sympathizing  with  men  whose  hard  case  is  not  his  own. 


170  READIANA. 

Accordingly,  in  France  and  some  other  countries  this 
meritorious  and  kindly  class  is  profoundly  respected, 
and  its  industry  protected  as  thoroughly  as  any  other 
workman's  industry.  But  in  Great  Britain  and  her  colo- 
nies, and  her  great  off-shoot,  the  class  is  personally  un- 
dervalued, and  its  property  too  often  pillaged  as  if  it 
was  the  production  of  an  outlaw  or  a  beaver.  The  noto- 
rious foible  of  authors  is  disunion ;  but  our  wrongs  are 
so  bitter,  that  they  have  at  last  driven  us,  in  spite  of  our 
besetting  infirmity,  into  a  public  league  for  protection,* 
and  they  drive  me  to  your  columns  for  sanctuary.  I  ask 
leave  to  talk  common  sense,  common  justice,  common 
humanity,  plain  arithmetic,  ^id  plain  English,  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  about  the  property  of  authors  —  a 
theme  which  has  hitherto  been  rendered  unintelligible 
to  that  race  by  bad  English,  technical  phrases,  romantic 
pettifogging,  cant,  equivoques,  false  summing,  direct  lies, 
roundabout  sentences,  polysyllables,  and  bosh.  Do  not 
fear  that  I  will  abuse  the  public  patience  with  sentimen- 
tal grievances.  I  have  lived  long  enough  to  see  that 
each  condition  of  life  has  its  drawbacks,  and  no  class 
must  howl  whenever  the  shoe  pinches,  or  the  world  would 
be  a  kennel,  sadly  sonorous  in  the  minor  key.  I  will 
just  observe,  but  in  a  cheerful  spirit,  that  in.  France  the 
sacred  word  "  Academy  "  means  what  it  meant  of  old  — 
a  lofty  assemblage  of  writers  and  thinkers,  with  whom 
princes  are  proud  to  mingle ;  and  that  in  England  the 
sacred  word  is  taken  from  writers  and  thinkers,  and 
bestowed  with  jocular  blasphemy  upon  a  company  of 
painters  and  engravers,  most  of  them  bad  ones ;  that 
the  great  Apostle  of  Sympathy,  when  dead,  is  buried  by 

*  The  Association  to  Protect  the  Rights  of  Authors,  28,  King  Street, 
Covent  Garden. 


BIGHTS    AXD    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  171 

acclamation  in  AVestminster  Abbey,  but  is  not  thought 
worthy  of  a  peerage  while  living,  yet  a  banker  is,  who 
can  show  no  title  to  glory  but  a  lot  of  money  ;  that  what 
puny  honours  a  semi-barbarous  but  exceeding  merry  State 
bestows  on  the  fine  arts  are  given  in  direct  ratio  to  their 
brainlessness  —  music,  number  one ;  painting,  number 
two ;  fiction,  the  king  of  the  fine  arts,  number  nothing ; 
—  that  authors  pay  the  Queen's  taxes  and  the  parochial 
rates,  and  yet  are  compelled  to  pay  a  special  and  unjust 
tax  to  public  libraries,  while  painters,  on  the  contrary, 
are  allowed  to  tax  the  public  full  fifteen  thousand 
pounds  a  year  for  leave  to  come  into  a  public  shop, 
built  with  public  money,  and  there  buy  the  painters' 
pictures.  All  these  are  Anglo-Saxon  humours,  that 
rouse  the  contempt  of  the  Latin  races,  but  they  cannot 
starve  a  single  author  and  his  family ;  so  we  leave 
them  to  advancing  civilization,  political  changes,  and 
the  ridicule  of  Europe. 

But  insecurity  of  property  is  a  curse  no  class  can  en- 
dure, nor  is  bound  to  endure.  It  is  a  relic  of  barbarism. 
Every  nation  has  groaned  under  it  at  some  period ;  but, 
while  it  lasted,  it  always  destroyed  happiness  and  good- 
ness. It  made  fighting  and  bloodshed  a  habit,  and  crimi- 
nal retaliation  a  form  of  justice.  Insecurity  of  property 
saps  public  and  private  morality ;  it  corrupts  alike  the 
honest  and  the  dishonest.  It  eggs  on  the  thief,  and 
justifies  the  pillaged  proprietor  in  stealing  all  round, 
since  in  him  theft  is  but  retribution.  Under  this  hor- 
rible curse  there  still  groans  a  solitary  class  of  honest, 
productive  workmen,  the  Anglo-Saxon  author,  by  which 
word  I  mean  the  writer,  who  receives  no  wages,  and 
therefore  his  production  becomes  his  property,  and  his 
sole  means  of  subsistence.     To  make  his  condition  clear 


172  KEADIANA. 

to  plain  men,  T  will  place  him  in  a  row  with  other  pro- 
ductive workmen  and  show  the  difference  :  — 

1.  His  own  brother,  the  Anglo-Saxon  writer  for  wages, 
is  never  robbed  of  a  shilling.  He  has  the  good  luck  not 
to  be  protected  by  feeble  statutes,  but  by  the  law  of  the 
land  at  home  and  abroad. 

2.  His  first  cousin,  the  Latino-Celtic  author,  has  his 
property  made  secure  by  the  common  law  of  his  nation, 
and  efficient  statutes,  criminal  as  well  as  civil. 

3.  The  painter,  the  cabinet-maker,  the  fisherman,  the 
basket-maker,  and  every  other  Anglo-Saxon  workman, 
who  uses  his  own  or  open  materials,  and,  receiving  no 
wages,  acquires  the  production,  has  that  production  se- 
cured to  him  for  ever  by  the  common  law  with  criminal 
as  well  as  civil  remedies. 

Only  the  Anglo-Saxon  author  has  no  remedy  against 
piracy  under  the  criminal  law,  and  feeble  remedies 
by  statute,  which,  as  I  shall  show,  are  sometimes  turned 
from  feeble  to  null  by  the  misinterpretations  of  judges, 
hostile  (through  error)  to  the  spirit  and  intention  of  the 
statute.  The  result  of  this  mess  is  that  the  British 
author's  property  is  pillaged  at  home  ten  times  oftener 
than  any  other  productive  workman's  property ;  that  in 
Australia  he  is  constantly  robbed,  though  his  rights  are 
not  as  yet  publicly  disputed ;  that  in  Canada  he  is 
picked  out  as  the  one  British  subject  to  be  half-out- 
lawed ;  and  that  he  is  fully  and  formerly  outlawed  in 
the  United  States,  though  the  British  writer  for  wages 
is  not  outlawed  there,  nor  the  British  mechanical  in- 
ventor, nor  the  British  printers  —  these  artisans  are  paid 
for  printing  in  the  United  States  a  British  author's  pro- 
duction—  nor  the  British  actor;  he  delivers  in  New 
York  for   five  times   as  many   dollars  as  his   perform- 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  173 

ance  is  worth  those  lines,  which  the  British  author  has 
created  with  five  times  his  labour  and  his  skill,  yet  that 
author's  remuneration  is  outlawry. 

Unjust  and  cruel  as  this  is,  the  other  Anglo-Saxon 
authors  are  still  worse  used,  especially  the  American 
author.  He  suffers  the  same  wrongs  we  do,  and  worse 
to  boot.  Our  home  market  is  not  seriously  injured  by 
American  piracy,  but  his  home  market  is.  The  remuner- 
ation of  the  established  American  author  is  artificially 
lowered  by  the  crushing  competition  of  stolen  goods ; 
and,  as  for  the  young  American  author,  however  promis- 
ing his  genius,  he  is  generally  nipped  in  the  bud.  I  can 
give  the  very  process.  He  brings  the  publisher  his 
manuscript,  which  represents  months  of  labour  and  of 
debt,  because  all  the  time  a  man  is  writing  without 
wages  the  butcher's  bill  and  baker's  are  growing  fast 
and  high.  His  manuscript  is  the  work  of  an  able 
novice ;  there  are  some  genuine  observations  of  Anaeri- 
can  life  and  manners,  and  some  sparks  of  true  mental 
fire ;  but  there  are  defects  of  workmanship :  the  man 
needs  advice  and  practice.  Well,  under  just  laws  his 
countryman,  the  publisher,  would  nurse  him ;  but,  as 
things  are,  he  declines  to  buy,  at  ever  so  cheap  a  rate, 
the  work  of  promise,  because  he  can  obtain  gratis  works 
written  with  a  certain  mechanical  dexterity  by  hum- 
drum but  practised  English  writers.  Thus  stale  British 
mediocrity,  with  the  help  of  American  piracy,  drives 
rising  American  genius  out  of  the  book  market.  Now, 
as  the  United  States  are  not  defiled  with  any  other 
trade,  art,  or  business,  in  which  an  American  can  be 
crushed  under  the  competition  of  stolen  goods,  the  rising 
author,  being  an  American,  and  therefore  not  an  idiot, 
flings  American  authorship  to  the  winds,  and  goes  into 


174  READIANA. 

some  other  trade,  where  he  is  safe  from  foul  play.  At 
this  moment  mauy  an  American  who,  under  just  laws, 
would  have  been  a  great  author,  is  a  second-rate  law- 
yer, a  second-rate  farmer,  or  a  third-rate  parson :  others 
overflow  the  journals,  because  there  they  write,  not 
for  property,  but  wages,  and  so  escape  from  bad  stat- 
ute law  to  the  common  law  of  England  and  the  United 
States.  But  this  impairs  the  just  balance  of  ephem- 
eral and  lasting  literature.  It  creates  an  excess  of  jour- 
nalists. This  appears  by  four  tests  —  the  small  remu- 
neration of  average  journalists ;  the  prodigious  number 
of  native  journals  compared  with  native  books ;  the  too 
many  personalities  in  those  too  many  journals;  and  the 
bankruptcy  of  800  journals  per  annum.  Now  I  am 
ashamed  to  say  all  this  injudicious  knavery  had  its  root 
in  England.  It  was  here  the  words  were  first  spoken 
and  written  which,  being  thoughtlessly  repeated  by 
statesmen,  judges,  writers  of  law  books,  and  now  and 
then  by  publicists,  have  gradually  deluded  the  mind  and 
blunted  the  conscience  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  That  great 
race  is  inferior  to  none  in  common  sense,  respect  for 
property,  small  as  well  as  great,  and  impartial  justice. 
To  be  false  to  all  these,  its  characteristic  and  most  hon- 
ourable traits,  it  must  be  under  some  strong  delusions.  I 
will  enumerate  these,  and  show  that  they  have  neither 
truth,  reason,  common  law,  nor  antiquity  to  support 
them ;  and  I  hope,  with  God's  help  and  the  assistance 
of  those  able  men  I  may  convince,  to  root  them  out  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  and  so  give  the  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
science fair  play. 

CHAELES  EEADE. 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  175 

SECOND   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  The   four  main  delusions  that  set  the  public 
heart  against  authors'  rights  are  :  — 

1.  The  ^therial  Maxia.  —  That  an  author  is  a 
disembodied  spirit,  and  so  are  his  wife  and  children. 
That  to  refuse  an  unsalaried  fisherman  an  exclusive  title 
to  the  fish  he  has  laboured  for  in  the  public  sea  would 
starve  the  fisherman  and  his  family ;  but  the  same 
course  would  not  starve  the  unsalaried  author,  his  wife, 
and  his  children.  Those  little  imps  may  seem  to  cry 
for  bread  ;  but  they  are  squeaking  for  ideas.  The  sethe- 
rial  mania  intermits,  like  every  other.  Its  lucid  inter- 
vals coincide  with  the  visits  of  the  rent-gatherer,  the 
tax-gatherer,  and  the  tradesmen  with  their  bills.  On 
these  occasions  society  admits  that  an  author  is  a  solid, 
and  ought  to  pay  or  smart ;  but  returns  to  aether  when 
the  funds  are  to  be  acquired,  without  which  rent,  taxes, 
and  tradesmen  cannot  be  paid,  nor  life,  far  less  respecta- 
bility, sustained.  No  Anglo-Saxon  can  look  the  setherial 
crotchet  in  the  face  and  not  laugh  at  it.  Yet  so  subtle 
and  insidious  is  Prejudice,  that  you  shall  find  your  Anglo- 
Saxon  constantly  arguing  and  acting  as  if  this  nonsense 
was  sense :  and,  pray  believe  me,  the  most  dangerous  of 
all  our  lies  are  those  silly,  skulking,  falsehoods,  which 
a  man  is  ashamed  to  state,  yet  lets  them  secretly  influ- 
ence his  mind  and  conduct.  Lord  Camden,  the  great 
enemy  of  authors  in  the  last  century,  was  an  example. 
Compel  him  to  look  the  setherial  mania  in  the  face,  and 
his  good  sense  would  have  revolted.  Yet,  dissect  his 
arguments  and  his  eloquence,  you  will  find  they  are 
both  secretly  founded  on  the  eetherial  mania,  and  stand 
or  fall  with  it. 


176  READIANA. 

2.  An  Historical  Falsehood.  —  That  intellectual 
property  is  not  founded  on  the  moral  sense  of  mankind, 
nor  on  the  common  law  of  England,  but  is  the  creature 
of  modern  statutes,  and  an  arbitrary  invasion  of  British 
liberty.  This  falsehood  is  as  dangerous  as  it  looks  in- 
nocent. It  crosses  the  Atlantic,  and  blunts  the  Ameri- 
can conscience  :  and  it  even  vitiates  the  judicial  mind 
at  home.  It  works  thus  down  at  Westminster.  The 
judges  there  hate  and  despise  Acts  of  Parliament.  They 
make  no  secret  of  it ;  they  sneer  at  them  openl}^  on  the 
judgment  seat,  filling  foreigners  with  amazement.  There- 
fore, when  once  they  get  into  their  heads  that  a  property 
exists  only  by  statute,  that  turns  their  hearts  against  the 
property,  and  they  feel  bound  to  guard  common-law  lib- 
erties against  the  arbitrary  restrictions  of  that  statute. 
Interpreted  in  this  spirit,  a  statute,  and  the  broad  inten- 
tion of  those  who  framed  it,  can  be  baffled  in  many  cases, 
that  the  Legislature  could  not  foresee,  of  which  I  shall 
give  glaring  examples. 

3.  That  the  laws  protecting  intellectual  property 
enable  authors  to  make  more  money  than  they  deserve, 
and  that  piratical  publishers  sell  books,  not  for  love  of 
lucre,  but  of  the  public,  and  for  half  the  price  of  copy- 
righted books.  I  will  annihilate  this  falsehood,  not  by 
reasoning,  but  by  palpable  facts  and  figures. 

4.  The  worst  delusion  of  all  is,  that  what  authors,  and 
the  Legislature,  call  intellectual  property  is  neither  a 
common  law  property  nor  a  property  created  by  statute, 
but  a  monopoly  created  by  statute. 

This  confusion  of  ideas,  unknown  to  our  ancestors, 
and  at  variance  with  the  distinctive  terms  they  used, 
was  first  advanced  by  Mr.  Justice  Yates  in  the  year 
1769.     He  repeated  it  eight  times  in  Miller  v,  Taylor  j 


RIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  177 

and,  indeed,  without  it  his  whole  argument  falls  to  the 
ground.  The  fallacy  has  never  been  exposed  with  any 
real  mental  power,  and  has  stultified  senatorial  and  legal 
minds  by  the  thousand.  It  was  adopted  and  made  popu- 
lar by  Macaulay  in  the  House  of  Commons,  February 
14,  1841.  He  was  on  a  subject  that  required  logic ;  he 
substituted  rhetoric,  and  said  striking  things.  He  said, 
"  Copyright  is  monopoly,  and  produces  all  the  effects 
the  general  voice  of  mankind  attributes  to  monopoly." 
In  another  part  of  his  rhetoric  he  defined  copyright  "  a 
tax  on  readers  to  give  a  bounty  to  authors ;  "  and  this  he 
evidently  thought  monstrous,  the  remuneration  to  pro- 
ducers in  general  not  being  an  item  that  falls  on  the 
public  purchaser ;  but,  where  he  learned  that,  only  God, 
who  made  him,  knows.  In  another  part  he  stigmatised 
copyright  as  "  a  lyionopohj  in  hooks.^^  He  did  not  carry 
out  these  conclusions  honestly.  Holding  them,  it  was 
his  duty  to  advocate  the  extinction  of  intellectual  prop- 
erty ;  but,  if  his  conclusions  were  weak,  his  premises 
were  deadly.  He  took  a  poisoned  arrow  out  of  the  cus- 
tody of  a  few  pettifoggers,  and  put  it  into  the  hands  of 
ten  thousand  knaves  and  fools ;  where  the  respected  word 
"  property  "  had  stood  for  ages,  he  and  the  pettifogger 
Yates,  whom  he  echoed,  set  up  the  hated  word  "  monop- 
oly." "  Rank  weeds  do  grow  apace  ;  "  this  fallacy  spread 
swiftly  from  the  Senate  to  the  bar,  from  the  bar  to  the 
bench.  I  have  with  my  own  ears  heard  the  Barons  of 
the  Exchequer  call  copyright  a  monopoly  ;  nor  is  the  ex- 
pression confined  to  that  court ;  it  is  adopted  by  writers 
of  law-books,  and  so  infects  the  minds  of  the  growing 
lawyers.  But  only  consider  the  effect  —  Here  is  a  prop- 
erty the  great  public  never  reads  about  nor  understands, 
and  is  therefore  at  the  mercy  of  its  public  teachers.     It 


178  KEADIANA. 

hears  the  mouthpieces  of  law,  and  the  mouthpieces  of 
o})inion,  declare  from  their  tribunals  that  the  strange, 
unintelligible  property  called  by  tlie  inhuman  and  unin- 
telligible name  of  "  copyright "  is  a  monopoly.  The 
public  has  at  last  got  a  word  with  a  meaning.  It  knows 
what  monopoly  is,  knows  it  too  well.  This  nation  has 
groaned  under  monopolies,  and  still  smarts  under  their 
memory.  It  abhors  the  very  sound,  and  thinks  that 
whoever  baffles  a  monopoly  sides  with  divine  justice  and 
serves  the  nation.  Therefore  to  call  an  author's  prop- 
erty a  monopoly  is  to  make  the  conscience  of  the  pirate 
easy,  and  even  just  men  apathetic  when  an  author  is 
swindled;  it  is  to  prejudice  both  judges  and  juries,  and 
prepare  the  way  to  false  verdicts  and  disloyal  judgments. 
I  pledge  myself  to  prove  it  is  one  of  the  stupidest  false- 
hoods that  muddleheads  ever  uttered,  and  able  but  un- 
guarded men  ever  repeated.  I  undertiike  to  prove  this 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  and  of  all 
the  honest  lawyers  who  have  been  decoyed  into  the  error, 
and  have  delivered  it  as  truth  from  the  judgment  seat 
this  many  a  year.  At  present  I  will  only  say  that 
if  any  statesman  or  practical  lawyer,  or  compiler  of 
law  books,  who  either  by  word  of  mouth  or  in  print 
has.  told  the  public  "  copyright "  is  a  "  monopoly,"  dares 
risk  his  money  on  his  brains,  I  will  meet  him  on 
liberal  terms.  I  will  bet  him  a  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  to  fifty  copyright  is  not  a  monopoly,  and  is 
property.  All  I  claim  is  capable  referees.  Let  us 
say  Lord  Selborne,  Mr.  Robert  Lowe,  and  Mr.  Fitz- 
james  Stephen,  if  those  gentlemen  will  consent  to  act. 
I  offer  the  odds,  so  I  think  I  have  a  right  to  demand 
discriminating  judges.  If  any  gentleman  takes  up 
this    bet    I    will  ask  him  to  do  it   publicly    by  letter 


EIGHTS   AXD   WEOXGS   OF   AUTHORS.  179 

to  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  and  we  will  then  proceed 
to  deposit  the  stakes,  &c.* 

From  all  these  crnel  delusions  I  draw  one  comfort : 
perhaps  authors  are  not  hated  after  all,  but  only  misun- 
derstood ;  and,  if  we  can  enlighten  the  mind  of  states- 
men, lawyers,  and  the  public,  we  may  find  the  general 
heart  as  human  to  us  as  ours  has  always  been  to  our 
fellow-citizens,  and  they  don't  deny  it. 

The  two  great  properties  of  authors  are  "  copyright," 
or  the  sole  right  of  printing  and  reprinting  for  sale  the 
individual  work  a  man  has  honestly  created,  and  "  stage- 
right,"  or  the  sole  right  of  representing  the  same  for 
money  on  a  public  stage.  The  men  who  violate  these 
rights  have  for  ages  been  called  pirates.  The  terms 
"  copyright "  and  "  stage-right "  are  our  calamities.  They 
keep  us  out  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  heart  by  parting  us  from 
its  language.  France  calls  them  both  by  one  name, 
^^les  droits  d^auteurs  ;^^  and  it  is  partly  the  long  use  of 
this  human  phrase  that  has  made  France  so  just  and 
humane  to  authors.  Warned  by  this  experience,  I  pause 
in  alarm  before  these  repulsive  words,  that  stand  like  a 
bristling  wall  between  us  and  manly  sympathy ;  and  I 
implore  the  reader  of  these  letters  to  be  very  intelligent, 
to  open  his  mind  to  evidence  that  under  these  unfortu- 
nate and  technical  words  lie  great  human  realities ;  that 
both  rights  mean  propertyf  and  that  to  infringe  either 
property  has  just  the  same  effect  on  an  author  as  to  rob 
his  house ;  but  to  infringe  them  habitually  by  defect  of 
law  or  judicial  prejudice  is  far  more  fatal;  the  burglar 
only  takes  an  author's  superfluities,  but  the  unchecked 
pirate  takes  his  house  itself,  and,  indeed,  his  livelihood : 

*  No  person  lias  ever  ventured  to  encounter  Mr.  Keade,  and  risk  his 
money  on  his  opinion  that  copyright  is  a  monopoly. 


180  READIANA. 

You  take  my  house,  when  you  do  take  the  prop 
That  doth  sustain  my  house  ;  you  take  my  life, 
When  you  do  take  the  means  whereby  I  live. 


I  do  earnestly  beg  the  reader,  then,  in  the  name  of  wis- 
dom, justice,  humanity  and  Christianity,  not  to  be  baffled 
by  a  miserable  husk  where  there  is  really  a  rich  kernel ; 
not  to  let  the  technical  appearance  of  two  words  divert 
him  from  a  serious  effort  to  comprehend  the  rights  and 
the  wrongs  of  those  men,  living,  whose  insensible  re- 
mains he  worships  when  dead.  In  face  of  eternal  jus- 
tice the  dead  and  the  living  author  are  one  man  ;  the 
dead  is  an  author  who  was  alive  yesterday  ;  the  living  is 
an  author  who  will  be  dead  to-morrow.  In  a  word,  then, 
take  away  or  mutilate  either  of  the  properties  so  unfor- 
tunately named,  and  you  remove  the  sole  check  of  piracy ; 
but,  piracy  unchecked,  the  ruin  and  starvation  of  authors, 
and  the  extinction  of  literature  follow  as  inevitably  as 
sunset  follows  noon.  To  give  the  reader  a  practical  in- 
sight into  this,  I  will  select  literary  piracy,  or  infringe- 
ment of  copyright,  and  show  its  actual  working.  The 
composition  is  the  true  substance  of  a  book ;  the  paper, 
ink,  and  type  are  only  the  vehicles.  The  volumes  com- 
bine the  substance  and  the  vehicles,  and  are  the  joint 
product  of  many  artisans,  and  a  single  artist,  the  author. 
The  artisans,  to  wit,  the  paper-makers,  compositors,  press- 
men, and  binders,  are  all  paid,  whether  the  book  succeeds 
or  fails.  To  go  from  the  constructors  to  the  sellers,  you 
find  the  same  distinction ;  the  retail  bookseller  takes  the 
enormous  pull  of  25  per  cent,  on  every  copy,  yet  the 
failure  of  the  work  entails  no  loss  on  him  —  unless  he 
overstocks  himself  —  because  he  is  paid  out  of  the  gross 
receipts.     But  the  author  and  the  publisher  take  their 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  181 

turn  last,  and  can  only  be  paid  out  of  profits.  Where 
there  is  a  loss  it  must  all  fall  on  author  or  publisher,  or 
both.  Now,  books  not  being  so  necessary  to  human  life 
as  food  or  clothing,  publishing  is  a  somewhat  speculative 
trade.  It  is  calculated  that  out  of,  say,  ten  respectable 
books,  about  half  do  not  pay  their  expenses,  and  of  the 
other  five  four  yield  but  a  moderate  profit  both  to  author 
and  publisher,  but  that  the  tenth  may  be  a  hit  and  largely 
remunerative  to  publisher  and  author,  supposing  those 
two  to  share  upon  fair  terms.  But  here  comes  in  the 
pirate.  That  caitiff  does  not  print  from  manuscripts 
nor  run  risks.  He  holds  aloof  from  literary  enterprise 
till  comes  the  rare  book  that  makes  a  hit.  Then  he  and 
his  fellows  rush  upon  it,  tear  the  property  limb  from 
jacket,  and  destroy  the  honest  shareholders'  solitary 
chance  of  balancing  their  losses.  The  pirate  who  reprints 
from  a  proprietor's  type,  and  reaps  gratis  the  fruit  of  the 
publisher's  early  advertisements,  and  does  not  pay  the 
author  a  shilling,  can  always  undersell  the  honest  author 
or  the  honest  publisher,  who  pays  the  author,  and  buys 
publicity  by  advertising,  and  sets  up  type  from  manu- 
script, which  process  costs  more  than  reprinting.  This 
reduces  the  honest  author's  and  publisher's  business  to 
two  divisions  :  the  unpopular  books  —  often  the  most 
valuable  to  the  public  —  by  which  they  lose  money,  or 
gain  too  little  to  live  and  pay  shop,  staff,  &c. ;  and  the 
popular  book,  by  which  they  would  gain  money,  but  can- 
not, because  the  pirates  rush  in  and  share,  and  undersell, 
and  crush,  and  kill.  I  appeal  to  all  the  trades  and  all 
the  arts  if  any  trade  or  any  art  ever  did  live,  ever  will 
live,  or  can  live,  upon  such  terms  ?  The  trade  —  all 
commercial  enterprise  requires  capital,  and  all  genuine 
capital   is   timorous  and  flies  from   insecure  property. 


182  EEADIANA. 

The  art  —  to  produce  popular  books  requires,  as  a  rule, 
such  intelligeuce  aud  capacity  for  labour,  as  need  not 
starve  for  ever,  but  can  go  in  the  course  of  a  generation, 
and  after  much  individual  misery,  from  literature  to 
some  easier  profession.  Therefore,  piracy  drives  out 
both  capital  and  brains,  and  marks  out  for  ruin  the 
best  literature,  and  would  extinguish  it  if  not  severely 
checked.  This  is  evident,  but  it  does  not  rest  on  specu- 
lation. History  proves  it.  Piracy  drove  Goldoni  out  of 
Italy,  where  he  was  at  the  top  of  the  tree,  into  France, 
and  made  him  eud  his  days  a  writer  of  French  pieces  for 
the  one  godlike  nation,  that  treated  a  pirate  like  any 
other  thief,  and  a  foreign  author  like  a  French  author ; 
piracy  extinguished  an  entire  literature  in  Belgium  ; 
piracy,  a.d.  1875,  stifles  a  gigantic  literature  in  the 
United  States ;  piracy  for  a  full  century  has  lowered  the 
British  and  American  drama  three  hundred  per  cent. ; 
A.D.  1694,  the  protection  afforded  to  copyright  by  the 
licensing  acts  being  removed,  literary  piracy  obtained  a 
firm  footing  in  England  for  a  time.  What  followed  ? 
In  a  very  few  years  a  handful  of  hungry  pirates  reduced 
both  authors  and  respectable  publishers  to  ruin,  them, 
and  their  families.  This  was  sworn  and  proved  before 
Queen  Anne's  Parliament,  and  stands  declared  and 
printed  in  their  Copyright  Act,  a.d.  1709.  Those  col- 
lected examples  of  honest  artists,  and  traders,  ruined  by 
piracy  are  hidden  for  a  time  in  the  Record  Office ;  but 
there  are  many  sad  and  public  proofs  that  piracy  can 
break  an  honest  trader's  heart,  or  an  honest  workman's. 
I  will  select  two  out  of  hundreds.  The  ill-fated  scholar 
we  call  Stephanus  was  not  only  ruined  but  destroyed, 
mind  and  body,  by  a  piratical  abridgment.  He  found 
the  Greek  language  without  a  worthy  lexicon.     He  spent 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF  AUTHORS.  183 

twenty  years  compiling  one  out  of  the  classical  authors. 
It  was  and  is  a  gigantic  monument  of  industry  and  learn- 
ing. He  printed  it  with  his  own  press  and  rested  from 
his  labours  ;  he  looked  at  his  Colossus  with  honest  pride, 
and  boasted  on  the  title  page,  very  pardonably, 

Me  duce  plana  via  est,  quae  salebrosa  fuit. 

What  was  his  reward  ?  A  man,  who  had  eaten  his  bread 
for  years  as  a  journeyman  printer,  sat  down,  and  with- 
out any  real  labour,  research  or  scholarship,  produced  in 
one  volume  an  abridgment  of  the  great  lexicon.  With 
this  the  miscreant  undersold  his  victim  and  stopped  his 
sale,  and  ruined  him.  In  his  anguish  at  being  destroyed 
by  his  own  labour  stolen,  the  great  scholar  and  printer 
went  mad,  and  died  soon  after. 

The  composer  of  our  ISTational  Anthem  surely  deserved 
a  crust  to  keep  body  and  soul  together.  Well,  piracy 
would  not  let  him  have  one.  His  immortal  melodies 
sold  for  thousands  of  pounds,  but  the  pirates  stole  it  all 
and  never  gave  the  composer  a  farthing.  At  eighty 
years  of  age  he  hung  himself  in  despair  to  escape  starva- 
tion. The  old  cling  to  life  —  goodness  knows  why ;  it 
is  very  rare  for  a  man  of  eighty  to  commit  suicide :  but, 
when  an  inventor  sees  brainless  thieves  rich  by  pillaging 
his  brain,  and  is  gnawed  by  hunger,  as  well  as  the  heart's 
agony  and  injustice  too  bitter  to  bear,  what  wonder  if  he 
curses  God  and  man,  and  ends  the  intolerable  swindle 
how  he  can.  The  malpractice,  which  could  murder  the 
composer  of  our  National  Anthem,  has  surely  some  little 
claim  to  national  disgust,  and  the  legal  restraints  upon 
that  malpractice  to  a  grain  of  sympathy.  Well,  its  only 
restraints  upon  earth  are  not  justice  nor  humanity  —  it 


184  READIANA. 

mocks  at  these  —  but  copyright  and  stage-right,  whose 
ugly  sound  pray  forgive,  and  listen  to  their  curious  his- 
tory. 

CHARLES   READE. 


THIRD   LETTER. 

Str,  —  The  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Saxons  had  no 
printing  press,  and  no  theatres  taking  money  at  the  doors. 
It  is  idle  to  search  antiquity,  or  even  mediaeval  England, 
for  copyright,  or  stage-right,  or  my  right  to  my  Cochin 
China  hen  and  every  chick  she  hatches.  "  Bonae  legis 
est  ampliare  jura ; "  common  law,  old  as  its  roots  are, 
has  at  every  period  of  its  existence  expanded  its  branches, 
because  its  nature  is  the  reverse  of  a  parliamentary  en- 
actment, and  is  such  as  permits  it  to  apply  old  principles 
to  new  contingencies  ;  to  bloodhounds,  potatoes,  straw- 
paper,  the  printing  press,  each  as  they  rise.  Copyright 
and  stage-right,  and  many  other  recent  rights,  grew  out 
of  two  old  principles  of  common  law ;  and  these  laid  hold 
of  the  printing  press  and  the  theatre  as  soon  as  they  could 
(tnd  hoKJ  theij  could.  The  first  old  principle  is  this: 
Productive  and  unsalaried  labour,  if  it  clash  with  no 
property,  creates  a  property.  All  the  uncaught  fish  in 
the  sea  belong  to  the  public.  Yet  every  caught  fish 
comes  to  hand  private  property,  because  productive  la- 
bour, when  it  clashes  with  no  precedent  title,  creates 
property  at  common  law. 

The  second  old  principle  is  this.  Law  abhors  divest- 
iture, or  forfeiture  of  property.  From  time  immemorial 
the  law  of  England  has  guarded  property  against  sur- 
mises and  surprises  by  defining  the  terms  on  which  it 


EIGHTS    AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  185 

will  permit  divestiture.  They  are  two  —  '^  consensus  " 
and  "  delictum ;  "  that  is  to  say,  "  clear  consent "  and 
"long  neglect,"  each  to  he  proved  before  a  jury. 

By  the  first  principle  —  viz.,  that  productive  labour 
not  clashing  with  property  creates  property  —  a  writer 
or  his  paymaster  acquires  the  sole  right  to  print  the  new 
work  for  sale.  All  lawyers  out  of  Bedlam  go  thus  far 
with  me. 

By  the  second  the  proprietor  acquires  nothing  at  all ; 
he  merely  retains  for  ever  that  sole  right  to  print 
which  he  has  acquired  by  productive  labour  —  unless, 
indeed,  he  divests  himself  by  "clear  consent"  or  "long 
neglect,"  to  be  proved  before  a  jury. 

Transfer  to  another  individual  is  "  clear  consent."  To 
leave  a  printed  book  fifty  years  out  of  print  might  possi- 
l)ly  be  "delictum,"  or  long  neglect  —  if  a  jury  should  so 
decide  —  and  that  would  make  the  right  common.  But 
to  print  and  reprint  one's  own  creation  is  to  exercise  the 
exclusive  right,  and  exercise  is  the  opposite  of  "delic- 
tum : "  it  is  the  very  course  the  common  law  has  pre- 
scribed from  time  immemorial  to  keep  alive  an  exclusive 
right  when  once  acquired. 

So  much  for  the  governing  principles.  Now  for  their 
operation. 

No  French  nor  Dutch  jurist  disputes  that  intellectual 
property  was  the  product  of  his  national  law,  though 
afterwards  regulated  by  statutes;  and  that  alone  is  a 
reply  to  the  metaphysical  sophists  who  argue  a  priori  th.?i,t 
common  law  could  not  recognise  a  property  so  subtle. 
However,  a  little  fact  is  worth  a  great  deal  of  sophis- 
tical conjecture.  So  let  us  examine  fact,  and  candidly. 
In  England  the  early  history  of  the  property  has  to  be 
read  subject  to  a  just  caution ;  we  must  assign  no  judicial 


186  READIANA. 

authority  to  unconstitutional  tribunals,  but  only  glean 
old  facts  from  them,  and  that  discreetly.  From  the  in- 
fancy of  printing  till  the  year  1640,  an  Englishman 
could  neither  print  his  own  book  honestly  nor  his  neigh- 
bour's dishonestly  without  a  licence  from  the  Crown. 
Its  principal  agent  in  this  iron  rule  was  the  Star  Cham- 
ber, a  tribunal  whose  deeds  and  words  are  not  worth  the 
millionth  of  a  strsiw  judicialli/.  But,  as  historical  evi- 
dence, especially  on  any  matter  irrelevant  to  its  vices, 
its  records  are  as  valuable  to  a  modern  as  any  other 
ancient  official  memoranda  of  current  events.  The  ori- 
ginal word  for  "  copyright "  was  "  copy,"  and  the  Star 
Chamber  used  this  word  in  very  early  times.  This 
proves  a  bare  fact,  that  copyright  existed  of  old  in 
printed  books,  and  that,  under  the  Tudor  Sovereigns,  it 
was  an  antiquity ;  since  it  had  even  then  lived  long 
enough  to  take  the  technical  name  "  copy,"  whereas  lit- 
erary monopolies  granted  by  the  Crown  were  invariably 
and  with  just  discrimination  called  "  patents ; "  and 
"stage-right,"  whose  existence  (in  unprinted  dramas)  by 
common  law,  at  this  time,  is  not  doubted  by  any  English 
lawyer,  had  no  name  at  all,  direct  nor  roundabout. 

The  Stationers'  Company  was  first  chartered  in  1556. 
In  1558  they  enter  copyrights  under  the  names  of  their 
proprietors,  and  the  entries  continue  in  an  unbroken 
series  until  1875.  In  1582  there  are  entries  with  this 
proviso,  that  the  Crown  licence  to  print  should  be  void, 
if  it  be  found  that  the  copyright  belonged  to  another 
person.  This  shows  how  Englishmen,  when  not  cor- 
rupted by  pettifoggers,  gravitate  towards  law  and  the 
sanctity  of  property.  The  Stationers'  Company  was 
chartered  by  the  Crown,  and  invested  with  some  uncon- 
stitutional powers ;  yet  in  a  very  few  years  they  make 


EIGHTS    AND    WROXGS    OF   AUTHORS.  187 

the  Koyal  licence  bow  to  a  precedent  title  of  proprietor- 
ship, that  could  in  1582  have  no  foundation  but  in  com- 
mon law. 

In  1640  the  Star  Chamber  was  abolished,  and  for  a 
while  everybody  printed  what  he  liked ;  thereupon,  as 
free  opinions  differ,  some  wrote  against  the  Parliament. 
Straight  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  took  a  leaf  out 
of  the  book  of  Kings,  and  passed  an  ordinance  forbidding 
any  work  to  be  printed  without  a  formal  licence ;  and 
then,  as  pirates,  relieved  of  the  licenser,  had  begun  their 
game,  the  same  ordinance  forbade  printing  without  the 
consent  of  the  owner  of  the  copyright,  on  pain  of  for- 
feiture of  the  books  to  the  owner  of  the  copyright. 
Thus  the  Commonwealth,  in  protecting  copyright,  went 
a  step  beyond  the  monarchical  Governments  that  pre- 
ceded it :  which  please  make  a  note  of,  Brother  Jona- 
than. 

November,  1644,  Milton  published  his  famous  defence 
of  unlicensed  printing,  and  attacked  that  portion  of  the 
aforesaid  ordinance,  which  infringed  common-law  lib- 
erties ;  but  he  sanctioned  very  solemnly  that  portion 
which  protected  common-law  rights.  That  great  enthu- 
siast for  just  liberty  used  these  words,  "the  just  retain- 
ing of  each  man  his  several  ^copy'  (copyright),  which 
God  forbid  should  be  gainsaid." 

Anno  1662.  Act  13  and  14  Charles  II.  prohibited 
printing  any  book  without  consent  of  the  owner,  upon 
pain  of  certain  forfeitures,  half  to  the  King,  half  to  the 
owner.  This  statute  followed  the  wording  of  the  Re- 
publican ordinance.  I  need  hardly  say  that  in  any  Act 
of  Parliament  "  owner "  means  the  "  legal  owner,"  not 
the  claimant  of  an  impossible  or  even  doubtful  right. 
Under  this  statute  a  leading  case  was  tried,  that  might 


188  READ!  AN  A. 

he  entitled  Property  v.  Monopoly.  "  Streater "  held 
what  our  ancestors  with  a  scientific  precision  their 
muddle-headed  descendants  have  lost  till  this  day  called 
a  ''  patent."  He  was  law  patentee,  i.e.,  he  had  from  the 
Crown  a  sole  right  to  print  law  reports,  and  that,  Messrs. 
Yates  and  Macaulay,  was  "  a  monojyoly  in  books  "  if  you 
like.  Streater  reprinted  Judge  Croke's  reports.  Roper 
sued  Streater,  proving  his  own  legal  ownership  by  pur- 
chase of  Croke's  copyright  from  Croke's  executor. 
Roper's  title  was  at  common  law,  for  the  statute  of 
Charles  II.  never  pretended  to  confer  ownership  ;  it  only 
protected  the  existing  legal  owner  by  special  remedies. 
Streater  (Monopoly)  pleaded  the  King's  grant;  Roper 
(Property)  demurred.  This  brought  the  question  of 
law  before  the  full  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  It  was 
given  for  the  plaintiff  against  the  King,  by  judges  who 
were  removable  at  the  will  of  the  Sovereign,  and  more 
inclined  to  stretch  a  point  for  him  than  against  him. 
Opposed  to  a  Royal  grant,  had  Roper's  title  at  law  been 
doubtful,  they  Avould  have  swept  him  out  of  court  with 
a  besom. 

Successive  licensing  Acts  protected  the  common-law 
owner  of  copyright  until  1694,  when  the  last  Act  ex- 
pired; but  as  another  was  threatened  for  five  years,  a 
dread  hung  over  piracy.  This  being  removed  in  1699, 
the  pirates  went  to  work  with  such  fury  that  the  pro- 
prietors of  copyright  began  to  cry  out,  and  in  1703  peti- 
tioned Parliament  for  protection.  For  six  weary  years 
they  besieged  hard  hearts  and  apathetic  ears.  One  of 
the  petitions  survives,  and  therein  the  petitioners,  though 
it  was  their  interest  to  exaggerate  their  case,  and  say 
they  had  no  remedy  at  law,  do,  on  the  contrary,  admit 
there  is  a  remedy  at  common  law.     But  they  say  it  is  in- 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  189 

adequate  — that  in  an  action  on  the  case,  the  jury  will 
give  no  more  damages  than  can  be  proved,  and  how  can 
a  thousand  piratical  copies  be  traced  all  over  the  country  ? 
"  Besides,  the  defendant  is  always  a  pauper,"  &c.  &c., 
cited  from  the  journals  of  the  House. 

In  1709  the  Legislature  took  pity  on  authors  and  hon- 
est publishers,  and  passed  an  Act,  the  words  of  which 
and  their  contemporaneous  interpretation  are  necessarily 
the  last  great  link  in  the  history  of  copyright,  before 
that  creature  of  the  common  law  became  the  nursling  of 
statutes.  The  preamble  of  a  statute  is  not  law,  but  his- 
tory :  it  relates  antecedent  facts,  and  declares  the  cause 
and  motives  of  the  enactment  to  follow.  Instead  of 
comments  I  put  italics  :  — 

"Whereas  printers,  booksellers,  and  others,  have  of 
late  frequently  taken  the  liberty  of  printing,  reprinting, 
and  publishing,  books  and  other  writings,  without  the 
consent  of  the  authors,  or  proiirietors,  to  their  very  great 
detriment,  and  too  often  to  the  ruin  of  them  and  their 
families  —  for  preventing  therefore  such  xjractices  for 
the  future,  be  it  enacted."  —  8th  Anne,  cap.  19,  sec.  1. 

In  the  body  of  the  Act  thus  prefaced,  the  old  word 
"  copy  "  for  "  copyright "  is  used  six  times  in  the  sense 
it  had  been  used  for  ages,  and,  so  far  from  inventing 
even  a  new  protection  to  old  copyright,  as  dreamers 
fancy,  the  Act,  in  that  respect  also,  is  a  servile  imitation 
of  the  various  licensing  Acts.  As  the  Monarchical  licens- 
ing Acts,  and  the  Republican  ordinances,  found  owners 
and  proprietors  of  "  copy^^  so  this  Act  finds  propjrietors 
of  "  copy  "  and,  as  the  Republican  and  Monarchical  Acts, 
protected  the  existing  owners  or  proprietors  of  "  copy  " 
by  confiscation  of  the  piratical  books  so  this  Act  pro- 
tects the  existing  proprietors  of  "  copy  "  hy  confiscation 


lUO  READIANA. 

of  the  piratical  books  ;  and,  to  any  man  witlr  an  eye  in 
his  mind,  this  deliberate  imitation  of  preceding  Acts, 
that  had  recognised  ''  copyright "  at  common  law,  and 
protected  it  by  penalties,  is  not  only  a  recognition  of  the 
property,  but  a  recognition  of  the  recognitions  and  the 
penalties.  Dreamers  always  confound  dates  ;  they  for- 
get that  many  of  the  Parliament  men  a.d.  1709  had 
themselves  in  person  passed  a  licensing  Act.  Even  the 
one  apparent  novelty  —  the  curtailing  clause  —  was  a 
bungling  attempt  to  arrive  in  another  way  at  the  tempor- 
ary feature,  which  was  the  characteristic  of  the  licensing 
Acts.  The  bill,  we  know,  went  into  Committee  an  Act 
protecting  property  for  ever  by  penalties.  In  Committee 
it  encountered  old  members,  and  these,  with  a  servile 
double  imitation  of  the  licensing  Acts,  which  were  penal, 
and  only  passed  for  a  term,  fixed  an  imitation  term 
to  the  imitation  penalties,  but  so  unskilfully  that,  by 
the  grammatical  sense  of  their  words,  they  shortened  the 
days  of  the  sacred  everlasting  property  itself.  Subject 
to  a  saving  clause,  which  afterwards  proved  too  obscure 
and  feeble  to  combat  the  spoliation  clause,  they  fixed  a 
term  —  of  a  book  already  printed,  twenty-one  years  ;  of 
a  book  to  be  printed,  fourteen  years ;  but  fourteen  more 
should  the  author  survive  the  first  term. 

Such  to  a  reader  of  this  day,  when  the  application  of 
the  lying  term  "  monopoly  "  has  blunted  the  understand- 
ing and  the  conscience,  is  the  apparent  sense  of  the 
statute.  But  you  must  remember  that  in  1709  the  word 
"  monopoly  "  had  never  been  applied  to  "  copyright "  by 
any  human  creature :  and  so  rooted  was  all  common-law 
property,  and  the  sense  of  its  inviolability,  in  the  Eng- 
lish mind,  that  neither  the  laymen  nor  the  lawyers  of 
Queen  Anne's  generation  read  the   statute  as  curtailing 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  191 

the  sacred  property.  Honest  Englishnien,  not  blinded  by 
cant,  know  no  difference  of  sanctity  in  property.  From 
a  hovel  to  a  palace  it  is  equally  sacred.  Curtailment  of 
an  Englishman's  property  is  spoliation  in  futuro,  and 
spoliation,  without  a  full  equivalent,  is  a  public  felony 
Englishmen  were  slow  to  suspect  the  State  of.  Queen 
Anne's  Parliament  sat  at  Westminster,  not  ISTewgate ; 
and  therefore  the  curtailing  clauses  were  interpreted  to 
apply  to  the  new  penalties,  not  to  a  thing  so  inviolable 
as  the  ancient  property.  Authors  continued,  after  this 
statute,  to  assign  their  copyright  for  ever  and  publishers 
to  purchase  them  for  ever,  just  as  they  did  before  the 
statute ;  and,  for  forty  years  at  least,  while  the  contem- 
poraneous exposition  of  the  statute  was  still  warm,  equity 
judges  ivho  had  conversed  with  members  of  both  Houses 
that  passed  the  Act,  and  with  lawyers  who  had  framed 
it,  and  had  means  of  knowing  the  mind  of  Parliament 
that  we  can  never  have,  granted  relief  by  injunction  to 
several  plaintiffs,  who  by  the  lapse  of  time  had  no  legal 
claim  to  any  benefit  from  the  statute,  but  only  from  the 
precedent  common-law  right. 

In  1769  —  Millar  v.  Taylor  — the  judges  of  the  King's 
Bench,  by  a  majority  of  three  to  one,  decided  that  Queen 
Anne's  statute  had  not  curtailed  the  ancient  right,  but, 
like  its  models,  the  licensing  Acts,  had  supported  it  by 
penalties,  which  expired  in  a  few  years,  leaving  the  bare 
right  protected  only  by  action  upon  the  case,  as  it  was 
before  the  statute. 

This  decision  stood  for  five  years.  But  all  those  five 
years  the  lying  word  '•  monopoly,"  launched  by  the  dis- 
sentient judge  in  Millar  v.  Taylor,  was  undermining 
the  property. 

February  9,  1774,  on  an  appeal  from   the   Court   of 


192  READIANA. 

Chancery  in  Donaldson  r.  Becket,  the  House  of  Peers 
directed  the  judges  at  common  law  to  reply  to  three 
questions,  which  may  be  thus  condensed  :  — 

1.  Had  an  author  the  sole  right  at  common  law  to 
print  his  MS.  ? 

2.  If  so,  did  he  lose  his  exclusive  right  by  printing  ? 

3.  Did  the  statute  of  Queen  Anne  curtail  this  right, 
and  confine  it  entirely  to  the  times  and  other  conditions 
specified  ? 

On  the  first  question  the  judges,  including  Lord 
Mansfield,  were  nine  to  three,  on  the  second,  eight  to 
four  against  the  forfeiture,  and  on  the  third,  six  to  six. 

But  Lord  Mansfield,  whose  great  learning  left  little 
room  in  his  mind  for  so  small  a  trait  as  pluck,  withheld 
his  voice,  without  changing  his  mind,  and  made  the  num- 
bers appear  to  be  —  on  the  first  question  eight  to  three, 
on  the  second  seven  to  four,  on  the  third  six  to  five. 
Pursuing  the  same  delicate  course  in  the  House  of  Peers 
itself,  he  sacrificed  the  biggest  thing  on  earth,  and  that 
is  justice,  to  an  extremely  pretty,  but  small,  thing,  eti- 
quette ;  whereas  Lord  Camden,  who  for  known  reasons 
hated  authors,  and  hated  Lord  Mansfield,  laid  aside  not 
only  etiquette,  but  judicial  gravity,  and  ranted  and 
canted  without  disguise,  as  counsel  for  the  pirates,  and 
so  stole  a  majority  (of  lay  lords,  not  lawyers),  whose 
judgment,  however,  went  only  to  this,  that  the  statute 
had  curtailed  the  everlasting  common-law  right. 

Thus  these  lucky  knaves,  the  pirates,  got  a  sham  ma- 
jority of  the  judges  to  defy  the  contemporaneous  and 
continued  interpretation  of  a  statute  sixty  years  old  — 
a  malpractice  without  precedent  in  our  courts  —  and  — 
anomaly  upon  anomaly  —  to  curtail  so  sacred  a  thing  as 
an   Englishman's  property.     Unfortunately  their    good 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  193 

luck  did  not  stop  there  ;  though  they  were  defeated  upon 
the  first  and  second  questions,  yet  the  Anglo-Saxon 
muddlehead  now  interprets  their  bastard  victory  on  the 
first  question,  into  a  victory  on  the  second  question, 
where  they  were  overpowered  by  numbers,  and  crushed 
by  weight,  Mansfield  and  Blackstone  being  in  the  major- 
ity, and  in  the  minority  three  comic  judges.  Eyre,  Per- 
rot,  and  Adams,  who  held  in  the  teeth  of  all  the  cases 
that  an  author  has  not,  by  common  law,  the  sole  right  to 
jjrint  his  own  man  user  i2)t.  Xow  the  metaphysical  muddle- 
heads,  led  by  Yates,  had  the  same  contempt  for  these 
three  comic  judges,  their  allies,  that  Mansfield  and 
Blackstone  had  for  their  allies  and  them.  So  then  the 
majority  who  said  —  "No,  copyright  at  common  law  is 
not  forfeited  by  its  lawful  exercise,"  for  law  abhors 
forfeiture  —  were  agreed  in  principle  :  but  the  minority 
were  only  agreed  to  say,  "  Copyright  in  printed  books 
did  not  exist  at  common  law."  They  could  not  agree 
whij.  The  only  prlncijj/e  the  metaphysical  judges,  and 
the  comic  judges,  held  in  common,  was  "  a  labefactation 
of  all  principle,"  viz.  a  resolution  to  outlaw  authors  per 
fas  et  nefas.  But  the  Anglo-Saxon  addlepate,  unable 
to  observe,  and  therefore  unable  to  discriminate,  con- 
templates, with  his  mooning,  lack-lustre  eye,  a  consistent 
majority,  led  by  the  only  judges  Europe  recognised  as 
jurists,  and  a  minority,  composed  of  trumpery  little  ob- 
scure judges  at  war  with  each  other ;  and,  in  the  teeth 
of  this  treble  majority,  by  numbers,  weight,  and  unani- 
mity, says  copyright  was  declared  by  the  judges  a  crea- 
ture of  statutes. 

Not  so,  my  friend  and  jackass.  A  great  majority  of 
the  judges,  led  by  giants,  and  agreeing  in  principle, 
overpowered  a  small  and  discordant  minority  of  judicial 


194  READTANA. 

dwarfs,  and  declared  copyright  in  printed  books  a  crea- 
ture of  the  common  law,  and  a  nursling  of  statutes. 

Looking  at  the  conduct  of  its  first  nurse,  in  1709,  the 
latter  term  is  doubly  appropriate ;  for,  when  a  nurse  is 
not  the  mother,  she  is  the  very  woman  to  overlie  the 
bantling,  and  shorten  its  days. 

Thus  from  1700-1709,  authors  and  their  assignees  suf- 
fered such  lawless  devastation  of  their  property  and  un- 
deserved ruin  as  no  other  citizens  ever  endured  at  that 
epoch  of  civilisation ;  and  in  1774  the  same  favourite 
victims  of  injustice  suffered  two  such  wrongs,  judicial 
and  legislatorial,  as  would,  had  they  fallen  on  any  pow- 
erful class  of  citizens,  have  drenched  the  land  in  blood, 
have  set  the  outlawed  proprietors  killing  pirates  like 
rats,  and  imperilled  the  House  of  Lords,  both  as  a  tri- 
bunal and  a  branch  of  the  Legislature.  And  this  is  the 
right  way  to  measure  public  crimes ;  for,  though  it  is 
safer  to  trample  unjustly  on  the  worthy  and  the  weak 
than  on  the  strong,  it  is  not  a  bit  more  just,  and  it  is  not 
so  much  more  expedient  as  it  looks ;  for  every  dog  gets 
his  day. 

The  judicial  wrong.  —  The  judges  are  the  constitu- 
tional interpreters  of  statutes,  and  their  interpretations 
are  law.  Precedent  rules  our  courts  like  iron.  When 
judges,  who  sit  near  the  time  of  an  Act,  interpret  it  in 
open  court  by  judgments,  and  so  precedents  of  interpre- 
tation accumulate,  the  chain  of  practical  interpretations 
becomes  law,  and  immutable ;  especially  if  the  Act  so 
interpreted  came  after  a  right  at  common  law  and  rec- 
ognised it.  Never,  since  England  was  a  nation,  has 
sixty  years'  interpretation  of  a  statute  been  upset,  except 
to  injure  authors.  Sixty  years'  interpretation  of  Queen 
Anne's  statute,  had  the  interpretation  been  injurious  to 


RIGHTS    AXD    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  195 

authors,  would  have  stood  as  immovable  as  the  walls  of 
Westminster  Hall.  Not  one  English  judge  would  have 
listened  either  to  reason,  or  to  principle,  or  to  grammar, 
or  to  all  three,  against  a  chain  of  precedents,  had  those 
precedents  hQQViHnjurious  to  authors.  Every  la^vyer 
knows  this  is  so,  and  that  the  answer  of  the  judges  to 
an  innovating  author  would  have  been,  "We  do  not 
make  interpretations  of  old  statutes ;  we  find  them  in 
the  cases.     Have  you  a  case,  Mr.  Author  ?  " 

The  House  of  Lords  was  not  itself  in  this  matter. 
Besides  the  excess  of  lay  peers,  there  were  two  elements 
that  vitiated  its  judgment.  1st.  Lord  Mansfield  with- 
held his  vote.  That  was  monstrous.  In  the  tribunal 
whence  there  is  no  appeal,  if  the  most  capable  judge 
withholds  his  voice,  the  majority  is  a  delusion.  I  don't 
say  his  silence  was  without  precedent.  But  the  other 
side  flung  precedent  to  the  winds.  2nd.  Lord  Camden, 
one  of  the  judges,  was  corrupt.  A  man  may  be  corrupted 
with  other  things  than  bribes.  This  lawyer  was  cor- 
rupted by  his  passions.  He  hated  authors  for  black- 
balling him  at  their  club,  and  he  hated  Lord  Mansfield 
for  being  a  greater  lawyer  than  himself.  Lord  Mans- 
field was  silent,  yet  Camden  spoke  at  him  all  through ; 
and  he  spoke  on  the  judgment-seat,  not  as  judges  speak 
who  are  trying  to  be  just,  but  as  counsel  play  with  clap- 
trap on  the  prejudices  of  a  jury  —  and  what  were  the 
lay  lords  but  a  jury !  He,  who  had  never  worked  his 
brain  for  reputation  only,  but  also  for  money,  money  for 
pleading  causes,  money  for  doing  justice  on  the  Bench, 
pension-money  for  having  judged  cases  and  been  paid  at 
the  time,  he  had  the  egotism  and  the  impudence  to  urge 
that  "  Glory  is  the  sole  reward  of  authors,  and  those  who 
desire  it   scorn   all  meaner  views.     Away,  then,"  says 


196  READIANA. 

canting  Camden,  "with  the  illiberal  avarice  that,  at 
sixty  or  seventy  years  of  age,  still  seeks  a  return  from 
books  written  at  thirty  or  forty.  No,  let  the  aged 
author  take  his  tottering  limbs  and  his  grey  hairs  to  an 
almshouse  or  starvation;  /'m  all  right?  /'ve  got  a  pen- 
sion." With  such  justice,  such  unselfishness,  such  hu- 
manity as  this,  well  wrapt  in  rant  and  omnipotent  cant, 
he  bribed  Lord  Noodle  and  Lord  Doodle  —  judges  in 
virtue  of  their  titles  —  to  annul  a  chain  of  true  judicial 
precedents,  to  pillage  the  property  of  their  intellectual 
superiors,  and  doom  their  declining  days  to  poverty  and 
degradation.  Why  not  ?  The  villany  could  not  recoil 
on  any  one  of  the  perpetrators  :  the  lay  judges  had  all 
got  land  from  their  sires,  a  property,  the  title  to  which 
is  generally  impure,  but  it  cannot  be  curtailed,  and  the 
pensioned  pettifogger  was  kept  in  affluence  by  the  State 
he  no  longer  worked  for ;  that  State,  which  does  not 
pension  retired  authors,  and  therefore  was  all  the  more 
bound  to  secure  to  their .  old  age  the  property  —  for 
creating  which  they  receive  neither  salaries  nor  pensions 
—  against  pilfering  pirates,  metaphysical  muddleheads, 
romantic  pettifoggers,  canting  pensioners,  and  all  the 
other  egotists,  dunces,  and  knaves,  who,  possessing  the 
lower  intellect,  hate  the  highest  intellect,  and  grudge  it 
a  long  lease  of  its  own  poor,  little,  insufficient  freehold, 
held  by  ten  thousand  times  the  purest  title  law  can  find 
on  sea  or  land  —  Creation. 

The  legislatorial  wrong.  —  The  nation  cried  shame  at 
the  judicial  robbery  of  authors  and  their  assigns.  The 
House  of  Commons  which  is  the  representative  of  the 
country  in  Parliament,  wasted  no  time,  but  proceeded  to 
cure  the  wrong  by  fresh  legislation.  They  brought  in  a 
bill   restoring   the    common-law   right   apart   from   the 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  197 

statutory  penalties.  It  was  carried  by  a  large  majority. 
But  in  the  Upper  House  it  encountered  Lord  Camden. 
To  be  sure,  matters  were  changed  now :  justice  and  hu- 
manity no  longer  asked  him  to  resign  his  new,  but  gram- 
matical, interpretation  of  an  old  statute.  They  bowed 
to  his  new  interpretation,  and  merely  asked  him  to  legis- 
late accordingly  :  to  rectify  the  unhappy  misunderstand- 
ing by  a  fairer  and  more  humane  enactment.  No !  the 
cruel  legislator  retained  the  perverse  malignity  of  the 
passionate  judge ;  he  met  all  the  petitions  of  the  suffer- 
ers, and  all  the  assignments  for  ever  of  literary  property, 
that  had  been  made  in  good  faith,  with  a  falsehood  — 
that  copyright  is  a  monopoly  —  and  with  the  same  rant 
and  cant  he  had  defiled  the  judgment-seat  with  in  Don- 
aldson V.  Becket.  He  wrought  upon  the  passions  and 
the  illiterate  prejudices  of  a  House,  which  was  not  the 
enlightened  assembly  it  is  now ;  justice  in  the  person  of 
Lord  Mansfield  once  more  sat  mumchance,  apathetic, 
cowardly,  dumb,  despising  secretly  the  romantic  injus- 
tice, the  pseudo-metaphysical  idiocy,  the  rant  and  cant, 
and  misplaced  malevolence,  he  should  have  got  up  and 
throttled,  like  a  man ;  unfortunate  authors  !  —  the  foibles 
of  your  friends,  the  vices  of  your  enemies,  all  tended  by 
some  gravitation  of  injustice  to  weigh  down  the  habitual 
victims ;  and  so  a  small  majority  of  the  peers  was  got 
to  overpower  a  large  majority  of  the  Commons,  and  the 
sense  and  humanity  of  the  nation. 

Upon  this,  authors  and  honest  publishers  fell  into 
deep  dejection,  and  resigned  all  hope  of  justice  during 
their  enemy's  lifetime.  After  his  death  the  House  of 
Peers  became  more  human  ;  they  seemed  to  admit,  with 
tardy  regret,  that  Lord  Camden  had  misled  them,  a 
little;  that  an  author,  after  all,    was  not  an  old  wild 


198  READIANA. 

beast,  but  an  old  man ;  and  so  they  gave  him  back  his 
stolen  property  for  his  whole  life,  and  for  twenty-eight 
years  at  least. 

That  remorse  did  not  decline,  but  grew  as  civilisation 
advanced.  In  1842,  Parliament,  advised  by  lawyers 
worthy  of  the  name,  passed  a  nobler  bill.  They  gave 
the  lie  direct  to  Mr.  Justice  Yates  and  Lord  Camden, 
by  formally  declaring  copyright  to  be  jn^opevty  (Act  5 
and  6  Victoria,  cap.  45,  sect.  25),  and  they  postponed 
the  statutory  dissolution  of  this  sacred  and  declared 
property  for  forty-two  years  at  least,  and  seven  years 
after  the  author's  death. 

But  for  Macaulay's  rhetoric,  and  his  popular  cry 
"  Monopoly,"  Parliament  would  have  refunded  us  our 
property  for  sixty  years  :  and  that  may  come  as  civilisa- 
tion and  sound  views  of  law  advance.  For,  in  this 
more  enlightened  century,  the  progress  of  intellectual 
property  keeps  step  with  advancing  civilisation  and 
sound  views  of  trade.  Accordingly  in  1838,  there  was 
a  faint  attempt  at  international  justice  to  authors,  and 
in  1851,  other  nations  began  really  to  comprehend  what 
France,  the  leading  nation  in  this  morality,  had  always 
seen,  that  the  nationality  of  an  author  does  not  affect  his 
moral  claim  to  a  property  in  his  composition.  But  that 
question  includes  international  stage-right,  and  must 
follow  its  legal  history  ;  which,  however,  will  not  detain 
us  long  from  the  main  topic  of  these  letters. 

CHARLES   READE. 

FOURTH   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  Stage-right  is  a  term  invented  by  me,  and  first 
printed  in  a  book  called  "  The  Eighth  Commandment." 


EIGHTS    AND    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  199 

The  judges  of  the  Common  Pleas  accepted  it  from  me 
when  I  argued  in  person  the  question  of  law,  that  arose 
out  of  the  first  count  in  Reade  v.  Conquest.  The  term 
was  necessary.  Truth  and  legal  science  had  not  a  fair 
chance,  so  long  as  the  fallacious  phrase  "  Dramatic  Copy- 
right "  infested  the  courts  and  the  books :  its  use,  by 
counsel  and  judges,  had  created  many  misunderstand- 
ings, and  one  judicial  error,  Cumberland  v.  Planche. 
Language  has  its  laws,  which  even  the  learned  cannot 
violate  with  impunity  :  adjectives  can  qualify  a  substan- 
tive, but  cannot  change  its  substance  ;  "  Dramatic  Copy- 
right "  either  means  the  exclusive  right  of  printing  a 
play-book,  or  it  means  nothing  :  but,  since  the  word 
"  Copyright "  covers  the  exclusive  right  of  printing  a 
play -book,  ''  Dramatic  Copyright "  does  really  mean 
nothing.  It  is  an  illogical,  pernicious  phrase,  and,  if 
any  lawyer  will  just  substitute  the  word  "  Stage-right," 
he  will  be  amazed  at  the  flood  of  light  the  mere  use  of  a 
scientific  word  will  pour  upon  the  fog,  that  at  present 
envelops  history  and  old  decisions,  especially  Coleman  v. 
Wathen,  Murray  v.  Elliston,  and  Morris  v.  Kelly,  lead- 
ing cases. 

Stage-right,  or  the  sole  right  of  an  author  to  produce 
and  reproduce  his  uriprinted  dramas  on  the  stage,  is 
allowed  by  lawyers  to  have  been  a  common-law  right  up 
to  the  date  of  3  Will.  IV.  This  admission  shortens  dis- 
cussion. Henslowe's  Theatre  was  exceptional :  in  his 
days  and  Shakespeare's,  most  theatres  were  managed 
thus :  established  actors  were  the  shareholders,  and  ob- 
tained plays  on  various  terms ;  if  an  author  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  sharing  company,  he  was  paid  by  his  share  of 
the  profits.  The  non-sharing  author  received  a  sum,  or 
the  overplus   of  a  certain  night,  or  both.     The  stage- 


200  KEADIANA. 

right  of  an  author  vested  in  the  company  upon  the 
common-haw  principle,  that  the  paymaster  of  a  produc- 
tion is  its  proprietor.  To  this  severe  equity  we  owe  a 
literary  misfortune ;  several  hundred  plays,  many  of 
them  masterpieces,  were  kept  out  of  print,  and  have 
been  lost.  The  plays  of  Jonson,  Fletcher,  Shakespeare, 
and  others,  were  confined  to  the  theatre  until  well  worn. 
Messrs.  Pope,  Warburton,  and  Jonson,  had  not  the  key 
to  Shakespeare's  business,  and  wrote  wildly  —  that  he 
neglected  his  reputation,  did  not  think  his  works  worth 
printing,  and,  thanks  to  his  flightiness,  his  lines  come 
down  to  us  more  corrupt  than  the  text  of  Velleius  Pater- 
culus:  but  the  truth  is,  other  plays  were  kept  out  of 
print  as  long  as  his  were,  and  his  text  is  by  no  means 
the  only  corrupt  one  of  that  day ;  and  what  those  fine 
fellows  call  his  flightiness  was  good  sense  and  probity. 
He  valued  reputation,  as  all  writers  do.  But  he  valued 
it  at  its  value.  The  man  wrote  poems  as  well  as  plays, 
and  did  the  best  thing  possible  with  both  :  of  a  poem 
the  road  to  a  little  fame  and  profit  was  the  printing 
press  ;  of  a  play  the  way  to  great  fame  and  profit  was 
the  theatre ;  readers  were  very  few,  playgoers  numerous 
beyond  belief ;  observe,  then,  his  good  sense  —  he  prints 
his  poems  in  1594,  almost  as  soon  as  he  can  afford  to  do 
it :  of  his  j'^^ays  he  prints  a  few,  one  at  a  time,  and  never 
till  each  play  has  been  well  worn  in  the  theatre.  Ob- 
serve his  probity  ;  he  was  a  sharing  author,  and  his 
fellow  shareholders  had  an  equitable  lien  on  his  plays. 
To  gratify  his  vanity  by  wholesale  publication  of  his 
plays  would  have  been  unfair  to  them.  This  is  con- 
nected with  my  subject  thus  —  In  his  will,  particular  as 
it  is,  he  did  not  bequeath  his  plays  to  anyone.  There- 
fore, prima  facie  they  would  go  to  his  residuary  legatee. 


RIGHTS    AND    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  201 

But  they  did  not  go  to  her.  Created  by  a  shareholder 
in  the  Globe,  and  handsomely  paid  for  year  by  year, 
they  remained,  by  current  equity,  the  property  of  the 
theatre.  The  shareholders  kept  them  to  the  boards  for 
seven  years  after  his  death,  and  then  printed  them.  His 
first  editors.  Hemming  and  Condell,  had  been  his  joint 
shareholders  in  the  G-lobe.  Now  observe  how  the  men 
of  that  day  commented  by  anticipation  on  the  romantic 
cant  of  recent  pettifoggers,  that  centuries  ago  if  any  one 
printed  a  MS.,  he  resigned  all  the  rights  he  held  while 
it  was  in  MS. !  The  copyright  in  Shakespeare's  plays  — 
it  was  not  violated  at  all.  The  stage-right  —  it  was  not 
violated  for  some  years  after  the  plays  were  printed ; 
but,  as  printing  and  publishing  plays  facilitate  dramatic 
piracy,  though  they  do  not  make  it  honest,  some  compa- 
nies plucked  up  courage  in  1627,  and  began  to  perform 
Shakespeare's  dramas  from  the  printed  book.  Then  the 
holders  of  the  stage-right  went  to  the  licenser  of  plays, 
and  he  stopped  the  company  of  the  Red  Bull  Theatre  in' 
that  act  of  piracy.  See  "  Collier's  Annals  of  the  Stage," 
vol.  ii.  p.  8.  The  Chamberlain's  decision,  in  this  matter, 
is  of  no  legal  value  ;  but  it  shoAvs  historically  that  the 
moral  sense  and  equity,  which  in  the  present  day  govern 
stage-right  and  copyright,  were  not  invented  by  recent 
Parliaments  ;  and  the  proof  is  accumulative,  for  ten 
years  later  —  namely,  in  1637  —  another  Chamberlain  is 
found  acting  on  the  same  equity,  and  in  terms  worth 
noting.  On  application  from  the  shareholders  of  the 
Cockpit  in  Drury-lane,  the  Chamberlain  gave  solemn 
notice  to  other  companies  not  to  represent  certain  plays, 
twenty-four  in  nimiber,  which  "did  all  and  every  of 
them  projyerly,  and  of  rights  belong  to  that  company," 
and  he  "requires   all  masters   and  governors  of  play- 


•jT)2  READ  IAN  A. 

houses,  and  all  others  whom  it  concerns,  to  take  notice 
and  forbear  to  impeach  the  said  William  Bieston  (who 
represented  the  shareholders  of  the  Cockpit)  in  the 
premises."  Of  these  twenty-four  pla3^s  some  were  in 
MS.,  and  some  printed.  The  notice  is  worded  by  a 
lawyer,  and  the  declared  object  is  to  protect  iirojperty. 
Malone  in  Prolegomena  to  Shakespeare,  vol.  iii.,  p.  158. 

Soon  after  this  the  theatres  Avere  closed ;  and  that 
made  the  readers  of  plays  a  hundred,  where  one  had 
been,  and  deranged  forever  the  equitable  custom  that 
prevailed  before  the  Civil  War.  As  soon  as  the  theatre 
reopened,  dramatists  made  other  and  better  terms,  and 
those  terms  were  uniform ;  they  never  sold  their  manu- 
scripts out  and  out  to  the  theatre ;  from  1662  to  1694 
they  divided  their  stage-right  from  their  copyright; 
they  took  from  the  theatre  the  overplus  of  the  third 
night,  generally  at  double  prices,  and  they  always  sold 
the  copyright  to  the  booksellers.  Testibus  Downes, 
Pepys,  Malone,  Collier,  and  many  others. 

The  following  figures  can  be  relied  on  :  —  Stage-right. 
—  In  1694  Southerne  obtained  another  night,  the  sixth. 
In  1705  Farquhar  obtained  a  third  night,  the  ninth,  and 
authors  held  these  three  nights  about  a  century.  Dry- 
den,  under  the  one-night  system,  used  to  receive  for 
stage-right  about  £100,  and  for  copyright  £20 -£25. 
But  his  plays  were  not  very  popular.  Southerne,  for 
"  The  Fatal  Marriage,"  a.d.  1694,  stage-right  two  nights' 
overplus,  £260,  copyright  £36.  Eowe's  "Jane  Shore," 
stage-right  three  nights,  copyright  £50  15s.  Rowe's 
"  Jane  Grey,"  stage-right  three  nights,  copyright  £75. 
Southerne's  "  Spartan  Dame,"  stage-right  not  known, 
copyright  £120,  a.d.  1719.  Cibber's  "Non-Juror"  and 
Smythe's  "  Rival  Modes,"  stage-right  three  nights  each, 


KIGHTS    AXD    WROXGS    OF    AUTHORS.  203 

copyright  a  hundred  guineas  apiece  from  Bookseller 
Lintot.  Fenton's  "Marianne,"  stage-right  and  copyright, 
total  £1,000,  A.D.  1723.  "George  Barnwell,"  by  Lillo, 
stage-right  the  overplus  of  three  nights,  copyright  £105. 
This  copyright  Lillo  assigned  to  Bookseller  Gray  and 
his  heirs /or  ever,  on  the  25th  of  November,  1735.  'The 
assignment  is  to  be  seen  to  this  day,  printed  in  full,  in 
the  edition  of  1810.  Dr.  Young's  "  Busiris,"  stage-right 
three  nights,  copyright  £84.  Lintot.  Copyright  alone 
of  Addison's  "Drummer"  (failed  at  the  time  on  stage), 
£50.  Dr.  Young's  "  Kevenge,"  stage-right  large,  copy- 
right £50.  "  Beggar's  Opera,"  stage-right  £1,600,  copy- 
right £400.  "  Polly,"  by  the  same  author,  representation 
stopped  by  the  Chamberlain,  cop^-right  £1,200.  This 
proves  little ;  it  was  published  by  subscription.  "  The 
Brothers,"  by  Dr.  Young,  stage-right  and  copyright 
£1,000,  the  proportions  not  ascertained.  "  The  Follies 
of  a  Day,"  by  Holcroft,  stage-right  £600,  copyright 
£300.  "Koad  to  Kuin,"  stage-right  £900,  copyright 
£400.  Goldsmith's  "Good-natured  Man,"  stage-right 
£300,  copyright  £200.  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer," 
stage-right,   £500,   copyright,   £300. 

Now  the  other  branch  of  fiction  had  but  one  market, 
copyright :  yet  the  copyright  of  a  story  in  prose  or  verse 
was  less  valuable  than  the  copyright  of  a  play.  Milton's 
"Paradise  Lost"  was  sold  in  1657  for  £5  per  edition, 
which  was  rather  less  than  the  copyright  of  a  play  in 
1662,  and  80  per  cent,  less  than  the  stage-right.  Defoe 
did  not  receive  £105  for  "Eobinson  Crusoe."  Pope's 
"Rape  of  the  Lock,"  first  edition,  £7.  Second  edition, 
£15.  Dr.  Johnson's  "  Irene,"  a  very  bad  play,  brought 
him  £315.  "  Rasselas,"  an  exquisite  tale,  only  £100; 
and  his  true  narratives,  and  best  work,  "The  Lives  of 


204  READIANA. 

the  Poets,"  only  £200.  Goldsmith's  "Vicar  of  Wake- 
field," only  £60,  which  compare  with  the  copyrights  of 
Goldsmith's  plays ;  that  were  nevertheless  less  remuner- 
ative than  his  stage-rights.  Of  the  two  properties  in  a 
play,  both  so  largely  remunerated,  neither  could  have 
been  an  empty  sound ;  book-copyright,  far  less  valuable, 
was,  we  know,  secure ;  nor  is  it  credible  that  the  stage- 
right  was  legally  dissolved,  if  the  author  went  into  print : 
otherwise,  the  managers  would  have  objected  to  the 
dramatist  going  into  print,  and  the  managers  were  clearly 
masters  of  the  situation. 

3Inc1din  v.  Richardson  —  a.d.  1770.  Macklin,  author 
of  a  MS.  farce,  used  to  play  it,  but  never  printed.  Rich- 
ardson took  it  down  shorthand  from  the  actor's  lips,  and 
printed  it.  Macklin  filed  an  injunction.  Defendant 
tried  the  reasoning  of  Mr.  Justice  Yates:  "Plaintiff  had 
flown  his  bird ;  had  given  his  ideas  to  the  public,  and  no 
member  of  the  public  could  be  restrained  from  doing 
what  he  liked  with  them."  This  piece  of  thieves'  cant 
failed,  and  the  injunction  was  made  perpetual.  This  is 
a  pure  copyright  case ;  stage-right  never  entered  the  dis- 
cussion. Coleman  v.  Wathen,  and  Murray  v.  Elliston, 
were  neither  copyright,  nor  stage-right,  but  bastard, 
cases,  where  the  wrong  plaintiff  came  into  court.  They 
arose  out  of  an  imperfect  vocabulary.  "Words  are  the 
counters  of  wise  men,  but  the  money  of  fools,"  sa3^s  Lord 
Bacon :  the  sole  right  of  printing  being  represented  by  a 
good  hard  substantive,  any  mind  could  realise  that  right, 
but  the  sole  right  of  representation  not  being  represented 
by  a  substantive,  the  soft  heads  of  little  lawyers  could 
not  realise  its  distinct  existence  and  heterogeneous  char- 
acter. One  has  only  to  supply  the  substantive,  stage- 
right,  and  the  fog  flies. 


EIGHTS   AND   WEONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  205 

Coleman  v.  Wathen.  —  O'Keefe  wrote  a  play  ;  by  this 
act  he  created  two  properties  assignable  to  distinct  tra- 
ders —  a  common-law  right,  stage-right ;  and  a  statutory 
right,  copyright.  He  assigned  the  copyright  to  Coleman 
in  terms  that  could  not  possibly  convey  the  stage-right. 
Wathen  played  the  play  piratically  at  Richmond.  This 
was  an  infraction  of  O'Keefe's  stage-right,  but  not  of 
Coleman's  copyright :  yet  bad  legal  advisers  sent  not 
O'Keefe,  but  Coleman,  into  court  as  plaintiff.  Coleman 
produced  in  court  an  assignment  of  copyright,  and  sued 
under  the  Act  of  Parliament  for  breach  of  it :  but  that 
statutory  right  had  never  been  infringed.  As  for  the 
stage-right,  it  never  came  into  court  at  all ;  it  stayed 
outside  with  O'Keefe  and  the  common-law. 

Murray  v.  Elliston.  —  The  same  error.  Lord  Byron, 
by  writing  "  Sardanapalus,"  created  stage-right  at  com- 
mon-law, and  copyright  by  statute.  He  assigned  the 
copyright  to  Murray.  He  could  have  assigned  the 
stage-right  to  Morris.  By  not  assigning  it  to  anybody 
he  retained  it.  '•  Expressum  facit  cessare  tacitum.'' 
Elliston  played  "  Sardanapalus.''  If  Murray  had  been 
well  advised,  he  would  have  sent  off  a  courier  to  Lord 
Byron,  and  obtained  an  assignment  of  the  common-law 
right  of  representation.  Instead  of  that,  this  assignee 
of  the  copyright  went  to  Eldon,  and  asked  him  to  restrain 
a  piracy  upon  the  author's  stage-right,  which  was  actu- 
ally at  that  moment  the  author's  property  and  not  Mur- 
ray's. Now  it  is  sworn  in  the  Blue-book  of  1832  that 
Lord  Eldon.  never  refused  an  injunction  to  Si  manager^ 
who  had  purchased  a  stage-right.  But  of  course  when 
not  a  manager,  but  a  publisher,  the  assignee  of  a  statu- 
tory copyright,  came  to  him  to  restrain  an  infringement 
of  common-law  stage-right,  he  declined  to  interfere,  and 


20  G  READLAJNA. 

sent  the  plaintiff  to  Westminster.  The  judges  decided 
against  this  plaintiff,  but  did  not  give  their  reasons. 
That  is  very  unusual ;  but  how  could  they  give  their 
reasons  ?  The  poor  dear  souls  had  not  got  the  words 
to  explain  with.  Existing  language  was  a  mere  trap. 
They  had  got  one  word  for  two  distinct  properties :  so 
they  very  wisely  avoided  their  vehicle  of  confusion, 
language,  and  acted  the  just  distinction  they  could  not 
speak  for  want  of  a  substantive.  There  is  no  reason  to 
suppose  that  they  would  have  denied  the  title  of  a  the- 
atrical manager  armed  with  an  assignment  of  the  stage- 
right  in  "  Sardanapalus."  There  was  a  side  question  of 
abridgment  in  Murray  v.  Elliston,  but  that  was  for  a 
jury.  The  judges  had  nothing  to  do  with  that :  what 
they  denied  was  Murray's  right  to  bring  an  action ;  and 
they  were  right :  he  was  no  more  the  plaintiff  than  my 
grandmother  was. 

Morris  v.  Kelly.  —  This  is  the  only  stage-right  case  in 
the  books.  Morris,  manager  of  the  Haymarket  Theatre, 
was  not  a  dealer  in  cop^^rights,  but  stage-rights.  He 
produced,  not  an  assignment  of  O'Keefe's  copyright,  as 
Coleman  had  done,  but  good  ^9?*ma  facie  evidence  that 
he  had  purchased  O'Keefe's  stage-right.  The  very  same 
judge,  who  declined  to  assist  the  assignee  of  Byron's 
copyright  in  a  case  of  piratical  representation,  granted 
an  injunction  with  downright  alacrity  when  the  assignee 
of  O'Keefe's  stage-right  stood  before  him.  The  play, 
whose  performance  was  thus  restrained,  had  been  in 
print  ever  so  long.  Therefore,  the  theory  that  under 
the  common  law  stage-right  exists  in  a  MS.,  but  expires 
if  the  play  is  printed,  received  no  countenance  from  that 
learned  and  wary  judge.  Lord  Eldon.  I  knew  the  plain- 
tiff, Morris  :    he  was  a  most    respectable  man  j    he  has 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHOES.  207 

sworn  before  Parliament  that  Lord  Elclon  constantly 
granted  injunctions  in  support  of  a  manager's  stage- 
right.  Morris's  evidence  is  incidentally  confirmed  by 
"  Godson  on  Patents :  "  he  mentions  an  injunction, 
Morris  v.  Harris,  which  is  not  reported. 

The  sworn  deposition  of  Morris,  and  the  support 
given  to  it  by  the  two  recorded  cases,  Morris  v.  Kelly, 
and  the  unreported  case  mentioned  by  Godson,  would  be 
meagre  evidence,  if  opposed ;  but  there  is  nothing  at  all 
to  set  against  that  evidence  —  not  a  case,  not  a  dictum ; 
and  it  accords  with  the  prices  of  plays,  play-books,  and 
story-books  in  prose  and  verse,  for  150  years,  1657- 
1810.  Stage-right,  therefore,  in  unprinted  plays  was,  by 
admission,  a  creature  of  the  common  law  and  the  natural 
product  of  common  justice  :  the  immense  publicity  given 
to  the  author's  ideas  by  representation  did  not  justify 
the  public  in  carrying  away  the  words  to  represent  them 
in  another  theatre.  Printing  a  play  would  greatly  facil- 
itate piracy  :  but  the  power  to  misappropriate  is  not  the 
right  to  misappropriate.  That  printing  a  play  could 
actually  forfeit  so  heterogeneous  a  property  as  stage- 
right  is  a  conjecture.  What  little  evidence  there  is  runs 
against  the  forfeiture.  Up  to  the  Commonwealth,  the 
Chamberlain,  alleging  projyerty,  stopped  violation  of 
stage-right  in  plays,  whether  they  were  printed  or  not. 
After  the  Restoration  we  have  only  the  evidence  of 
prices  for  150  years,  and  Lord  Eldon's  judgment.  He 
protected  stage-right  after  publication,  and  his  is  the 
only  judicial  decision  that  touches  stage-right  at  common- 
law,  either  in  MSS.  or  play-books. 

If,  therefore,  we  are  to  go  by  impartial  principles  of 
law  and  the  best  direct  evidence  we  can  get,  and  superior 
weight  of  judicial  authority,  speaking  obiter  in  Donald- 


208  READIANA. 

son  V.  Becket,  and  ad*n'em  in  Morris  v.  Kelly,  stage-right 
in  MSS.,  and  even  in  printed  plays,  was  like  copyright,  a 
creature  of  common  sense,  common  justice,  and  common 
law ;  but,  like  copyright,  is  now  a  nursling  of  statutes, 
thanks  to  a  sudden  onslaught  by  pirates.  For,  if  law  be 
ever  so  clear,  but  carry  no  penalty  for  breach,  property 
is  the  sport  of  accident ;  so,  on  the  close  of  the  war  in 
1815,  monopoly  and  piracy  fell  upon  the  dramatist,  and 
destroyed  him.  Two  theatres  got  the  sole  right  to  play 
legitimate  pieces  in  London,  and  this  made  the  author 
their  slave.  They  robbed  him  of  his  three  nights'  over- 
plus, and  threw  him  a  few  pounds  for  a  drama  worth 
thousands.  As  to  the  provincial  theatres,  a  single  pirate 
drove  all  the  dramatists  clean  out  of  them.  Here  is  a 
copy  of  his  public  advertisement  —  and  please  observe  it 
is  unprinted  plays  he  pirates  wholesale  :  —  "  Mr.  Ken- 
neth, at  the  corner  of  Bow  Street,  will  supply  any  gentle- 
man with  any  manuscript  on  the  lowest  terms "  — 
and  here  is  an  example :  —  Mr.  Douglas  Jerrold  gives 
evidence  to  the  Parliamentary  Commission,  Blue-book, 
p.  15G  :  —  "  ^  The  Kent  Day  '  was  played  in  the  country 
a  fortnight  after  it  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane,  and  I 
have  a  letter  in  my  pocket  in  which  a  provincial  man- 
ager said  he  would  willingly  have  given  me  £5  for  a 
copy,  had  he  not  before  paid  £2  for  it  to  some  stranger'^ 
(meaning  Kenneth).  The  method  of  this  caitiff  is  re- 
vealed in  another  quarter.  "  Kenneth  went  to  the  theatre 
with  a  shorthand  writer,  who  took  the  words  down  and 
the  mise-en-scene.  He  had  copyists  ready  at  home  to 
transcribe,  and  the  stolen  goods  were  on  their  way  to 
the  provincial  theatres  in  a  few  hours."  But  the  Lon- 
don theatres  also  pirated  the  author.  Moncrieff  deposed 
that  he  produced  "  Giovanni,"  a  musical  piece,  at  a  minor 


RIGHTS    AXD    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  209 

theatre.  Drury  Lane,  one  of  the  two  theatres  that  had 
a  monopoly  in  legitimate  pieces,  sent  into  Surrey,  stole 
this  illegitimate  piece,  and  played  it  in  the  teeth  of  the 
author.  The  manager  made  thousands  by  it,  and  brought 
out  Madame  Vestris  in  it,  and  she  made  thousands.  It 
was  only  the  poor  author  that  was  swindled  for  enrich- 
ing both  manager  and  actor.  That  victim  of  ten  thou- 
sand wrongs  dared  not  resist  this  piece  of  scoundrelism ; 
the  managers  would  have  excluded  him  altogether  from 
the  market,  narrowed  by  monopoly. 

But  piracy  has  also  its  indirect  effects.  Even  honest 
people  will  not  give  much  for  a  property  they  see  others 
stealing.  By  "  The  Rent  Day "  the  theatre  cleared 
twenty  thousand  pounds  ;  but  the  author  only  £150  ;  and 
for  "  Black-eyed  Susan,"  which  saved  Manager  EUiston 
from  bankruptcy  and  made  him  flourish  like  a  green 
bay -tree,  the  author  received  only  £60  ;  whereas  the 
actor,  Cooke,  who  played  a  single  part  in  it,  cleared 
£4,000  during  its  first  run,  and  afterwards  made  a  for- 
tune out  of  it  in  the  country  theatres,  which  did  not  pay 
the  author  at  all. 

The  Commissioners  proceeded  fairly.  They  heard  the 
authors  relate  their  wrongs,  the  monopolists  defend  their 
monopolies,  and  the  pirates  prove  their  thefts  pure  pa- 
triotisms as  usual :  and  they  reported  to  Parliament  a 
deep  decline  of  the  British  drama,  and  denounced  as  its 
two  causes,  the  monstrous  monopoly  of  the  managers, 
and  the  insecurity  of  the  author's  property  ;  on  the  latter 
head  these  are  their  instructive  words  :  "  A  dramatic 
author  at  present  is  subjected  to  indefensible  hardship 
and  injustice,  and  the  disparity  of  the  protection  afforded 
to  his  labours,  when  compared  even  with  that  granted  to 
authors  in  any  other  braiich  of  letters,  seems  alone  suf- 


210  READIANA. 

fieient  to  divert  the  ambition  of  eminent  and  successful 
writers  from  that  department  of  intellectual  exertion." 

Thereupon  Parliament,  in  the  interest  of  justice  and 
sound  national  policy,  took  away  from  the  two  patent 
theatres  their  wicked  monopoly,  and  secured  the  property 
of  a  dramatist  by  a  stringent  enactment.  The  last  link 
in  the  evidence  is  the  statute  itself.  3  &  4  Will.  IV. 
did  not  create  a  property  ;  it  found  one  ;  and  it  found  a 
law,  but  ineffectual.  The  title,  which  is  evidence,  when 
not  contradicted  in  the  body  of  an  Act,  runs  thus  :  — 
"  An  Act  to  amend  the  laws  relating  to  dramatic  literary 
liroperty.^^  Then,  as  to  the  Act  itself,  it  protects  the 
dramatist  so  sharply,  that  if  Parliament  had  been  creat- 
ing a  right,  they  would  certainly  have  fixed  a  term.  But 
they  respected  the  common-law  right  they  were  nursing, 
and  left  it  perpetual ;  and  this,  to  my  loevsonal  laiowledye^ 
they  did  because  of  the  growing  disgust  to  the  spoliation 
authors  had  suffered  from  preceding  Parliaments.  AMiat 
this  Parliament  thought  was,  that  stage-right  existed  for 
ever  in  unprinted  dramas  ;  and  they  laboured  to  extend  • 
the  right  to  its  just  consequences,  and  protect  it  fo7'  ever 
by  special  provisions.  When  the  right  had  been  a 
statutory  right  for  ten  years,  it  got  curtailed ;  but  Par- 
liament, that  took  it  from  the  common  law,  did  not  cur- 
tail it. 

This  is  the  mere  legal  history  of  two  sacred  properties 
up  to  the  dates  when  Parliament,  after  profound  consider- 
ation, and  full  discussion  at  wide  intervals,  did,  without 
haste,  or  prejudice,  or  any  of  those  perturbing  influences 
with  wliich  Lord  Camden  corrupted  the  Peers  in  his 
day,  declare  both  these  properties  to  be  not  monopolies, 
but  personal  properties.  The  full  statutory  definition 
amounts   to   this  — "  they    are    personal   properties,   so 


I 


RIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  211 

sacred  during  the  term  of  their  statutory  existence,  that 
they  carry  a  main  feature  of  real  property;  the  very 
proprietor  cannot  convey  them  to  another,  by  word  of 
mouth :  and  indeed  a  bare  licence  to  print,  or  to  perform 
in  a  theatre,  concurrently  with  the  proprietor,  is  void, 
unless  given  in  writing."  This  distinct  recognition  of 
property  was  a  return,  in  principle,  to  the  common  law, 
and  the  principle  was  too  just  and  healthy  not  to  grow 
and  expand.  Exceptional  law  is  bad  law  and  stands 
still.  Good  law  is  of  wide  application,  and  therefore 
grows. 

When  one  nation  takes  wider  views  of  justice  or  dur- 
able policy  than  other  nations,  we  do  not  say  like  our 
forefathers,  "That  nation   is   hare-brained."     We   say, 
nowadays,  "That  nation  is  before  the  rest;"  implying 
that  we  shall  be  sure  to  follow,  soon  or  late :    and  we 
always  do.     France  saw  thirty  years  ago  that  children 
must  not  be  starved,  and  so  murdered,  by  adulterated 
milk.     She  enlisted  science  ;  detected,  fined,  imprisoned, 
the  adulterators,  and  made  them  advertise  their  own  dis- 
grace in  several  journals.     She  was  not  mad,  nor  divine  ; 
she  was  human,  but  ahead.     Prussia  saw  long  ago  that 
the  minds  of  children  must  be  protected,  like  their  other 
reversionary  Interests.     If,  therefore,  parents   were    so 
wicked  as  to  bring  children  into  the  world  and  not  edu- 
cate them,  she  warned,   she  fined,  she   imprisoned,  the 
indulgent  and  self-indulgent  criminals.     She  was  before 
other  nations,  that  is  all.     England  was  the  first  to  see 
free  trade.     She  was  before  the  rest  of  Europe,  that  is 
all.     France  saw,  ages  ago,  that  if  A  creates  by  labour 
a  new  intellectual  production,  and  B  makes  one  of  its 
vehicles,  the  paper,  and  C  and  D  set  up,  and  work,  the 
type,  which  is  another  vehicle,  and  print  the  sheets,  and 


21 '2  EEADIANA. 

E  (the  publisher)  sells  the  intellectual  production,  to- 
gether with  its  vehicles,  in  volumes  to  F  (the  retail  book- 
seller), and  F  sells  them  to  the  public,  all  these  workers 
and  traders  must  be  remunerated  in  some  proportion  to 
what  they  contribute ;  and  that  the  nationality  either  of 
A,  B,  C,  D,  E,  or  F  is  equalh^  irrelevant ;  and  it  is  mon- 
strous to  pick  out  A,  whose  contribution  to  the  value  is 
the  largest,  and  say,  You  are  a  foreigner,  and  therefore 
you  can  claim  neither  propert}^,  nor  wages,  nor  profit  in 
France,  though  the  smaller  contributors,  B,  C,  D,  E,  and 
F,  have  a  right  to  be  remunerated,  whether  they  are 
foreigners  or  not.  French  jurists,  with  the  superior  logic 
of  their  race,  saw  this  years  ago,  and  in  1851  we  all 
began  to  follow  the  leading  nation,  according  to  our 
lights :  and  they  were  blinkers ;  because  we  were  not 
Latins,  but  Anglo-Saxons  :  God  has  not  made  us  jurists ; 
so  the  devil  steps  in,  whenever  we  are  off  our  guard,  and 
makes  us  pettifoggers. 

I  am  going  to  ask  brother  Jonathan  a  favour.  I  want 
him  to  cast  a  side  glance,  but  keen  —  as  himself  —  at 
what  passed  between  France  and  England  from  1851- 
1875  inclusively,  and  then  ask  himself  honestly  whether 
the  European  things  I  shall  relate  do  not  appeal  to  his 
own  sense  of  justice  and  true  public  policy.  The  United 
States  of  America  can  teach  us,  and  have  taught  us,  many 
things.  We  can  teach  them  a  few  things ;  not  that  we 
are  wiser,  but  that  Ave  are  older.  Age  alone  brings  cer- 
tain experiences.  In  the  United  States  Piracy  says, 
"  I  will  get  you  a  constant  supply  of  good  cheap  books 
and  dramas :  it  is  your  interest  to  encourage  me,  and  not 
to  foster  literary  poverty."  Piracy  says  this  in  the 
United  States,  and  is   believed.     Why  not?     It  looks 


EIGHTS   A^T)   WRONGS  OF  AUTHORS.  213 

like  a  self-evident  truth.  But  piracy  has  said  this  in 
Europe  many  times,  and  in  many  generations,  and  in 
many  countries,  and  has  been  believed,  and  believed,  and 
believed.  But  European  nations  have,  by  repeated  trials, 
at  sundry  times,  and  in  divers  places,  found  out  whether 
what  piracy  says  is  a  durable  truth,  or  a  plausible  lie. 
Thus,  what  in  America  is  still  a  matter  of  intelligent 
conjecture,  has  become,  in  Europe,  a  matter  of  absolute, 
proved,  demonstrated  certainty ;  and,  on  this  account,  I 
ask  American  statesmen  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
to  bring  the  powers  of  their  mind  really  to  bear  on  the 
European  facts  I  shall  relate,  and  am  ready  to  depose  to 
on  oath  either  before  aji  American  Congress  or  a  British 
Parliament. 

CHARLES  EEADE. 

FIETH   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  Interxatioxal  Copyright  axd  Stage-Right, 
A.D.  1851-52. 

It  is  instructive  to  look  back  and  see  how  this  great 
advance  in  justice  and  public  policy  was  received  by 
different  classes. 

1.  The  managers  of  our  theatres,  and  the  writers  of 
good  French  pieces  into  bad  English  ones,  showed  uneasi- 
ness and  hostility. 

2.  The  British  publishers,  dead  apathy.  M.  Paguerre, 
President  of  the  "  Cercle  de  la  Libraire,"  came  to  London 
to  invite  their  hearty  co-operation ;  "  but  found  them  in- 
different except  as  regards  America.  To  the  moral  bear- 
ings of  the  question  they  appeared  tolerably  callous."  — 
Athenceum,  September  20,  1851.  This  was  afterwards 
proved  by  the  prodigious  silence  of  their  organs.     On 


214  BE  A  DIANA. 

this,  the  greatest  literary  event  of  modern  times,  the 
Quarterly  Heview,  the  Edinburgh,  the  British  Quarterly, 
London  and  Westminster,  Blackwood,  Fraser,  the  New 
Monthly,  North  British,  Christian  Observer,  Eclectic  Re- 
view, Dublin  Review,  Dublin  University  Review,  deliv- 
ered no  notice  nor  comment,  not  one  syllable.  They 
shut  out  contemporary  daylight,  and  went  on  cooking 
the  stale  cabbage  of  small  old  ages,  by  the  light  of  a 
farthing  candle. 

3.  This  phenomenal  obtuseness  was  not  shared  by  the 
journals  and  weeklies.  The  journalists,  though  they 
have  little  personal  interest  in  literary  property,  being 
remunerated  in  a  different  way,  uttered  high  and  disin- 
terested views  of  justice  and  public  policy.  They  wel- 
comed the  treaty  unanimously.  Accept  a  few  articles  as 
index  to  the  rest.  Examiner,  1851,  November  29  ;  1852, 
January  24,  September  4,  October  oO.  Leader,  1851, 
November  15,  November  29.  Sunday  Times,  December 
7,  1851.  Era,  same  date.  Critic,  1851,  March  15,  Feb- 
ruary 2,  1852.  The  Times,  1851,  November  19  and 
November  26 ;  also  December  1,  page  4,  column  6.  Illus- 
trated London  News,  1851,  May  24.  Literary  Gazette, 
1851,  May  24,  July  5,  November  15,  November  22,  De- 
cember 13.  Athenamm,  1851,  January  18,  March  15  and 
29,  June  7,  August  2,  September  20,  November  22.  Art 
Journal,  1851,  September  and  November.  The  Neiv 
York  Literary  World,  March,  1851.  It  would  be  agree- 
able to  my  own  feelings  to  go  through  these  articles ; 
they  bristle  with  hard  facts  proving  that  piracy  upon 
foreigners  is  a  mere  blight  on  literature,  and  a  sj^ecial 
curse  to  the  nation  the  pirate  lives  in.  But,  perhaps,  a 
reader  or  two,  like  those  St.  Paul  calls  noble,  will  search 
the  matter,  and  to  save  time,  the  rest  may  believe  me, 


EIGHTS    AXD    WEOXGS    OF    AUTHOES.  215 

writing  with  the  notes  before  me.  I  will,  however,  select 
a  good  specimen.  A  letter  from  Cologne,  by  an  old  ob- 
server of  piratical  translations  in  Germany,  states  that 
thirty  3'ears  before  date,  good  translations  of  Scott  came 
into  the  German  market ;  Bulwer  followed,  then  Dickens. 
They  were  read  with  avidity ;  so,  not  being  property, 
rival  translations  came  out  by  the  dozen.  This  cut  down 
the  profits,  and  the  rival  publishers  were  obliged  to  keep 
reducing  the  pay  of  the  translators  —  till  at  last  it  got 
to  £6  for  translating  3  vols.     Act  1. 

Act  2.  Bad  translations,  by  incompetent  hands,  bad 
type,  bad  paper  ;  valueless  as  literature ;  yet,  by  English 
reputation  and  cheapness,  under-selling  the  German  in- 
ventor. Death  to  the  German  novelist ;  a  mere  fraud  on 
the  German  public  —  bad  translations  being  counterfeit 
coin  —  and  no  good  to  any  German  publisher,  because 
they  all  tore  the  speculation  to  rags  at  the  first  symptom 
of  a  sale.     Literary  Gazette,  November  15,  1851. 

The  Tinieii,  November  26, 1851,  supported  the  proposed 
treaty  in  a  leader,  taking  the  higher  ground  of  morality, 
justice,  and  humanity,  but  omitting  sound  national  policy. 
The  leader  contains  such  observations  as  these  :  —  "  In- 
tellectual produce  has  been  the  only  description  of  goods 
excluded  from  equitable  conditions  of  exchange."  — 
"  Genius  has  been  outlawed.  The  property  it  should 
have  owned  has,  by  the  comity  of  nations,  been  treated 
as  the  goods  of  a  convicted  felon."  After  giving  exam- 
ples of  French,  English,  and  American  genius  pillaged 
the  writer  goes  on  thus :  —  "  Still  worse,  copies  were 
multiplied  at  a  cheap  rate  in  Brussels,  and  disseminated 
all  over  the  Continent."  —  "  There  has  long  existed  a 
profound  immorality  of  thought  with  regard  to  the  pro- 
ductions   of  genius."  —  "  How  short-sighted  the  policy 


216  READIANA. 

has  been,  the  example  of  Belgium  evinces.  The  effect 
of  its  habitual  piracy  has  simply  been  the  extinction  of 
literary  genius  throughout  Belgium." 

The  Illustrated  London  Neivs,  May  24, 1851,  welcomed 
international  justice,  and  put  the  logic  of  international 
larceny  rather  neatly  :  —  "  An  English  book  was  treated 
like  any  other  commodity  produced  by  skill  and  industry, 
and  so  was  a  foreigner's  watch;  but  not  a  foreigner's 
book." 

In  a  word,  the  British  journalists,  all  those  years  ago, 
showed  rare  enlightenment,  and  personal  generosity ; 
for  there  are  no  writers  more  able,  and  indeed  few  so 
surprising  to  poor  Me,  as  the  first-class  journalist,  whose 
mind  can  pour  out  treasures  with  incredible  swiftness, 
and  at  any  hour,  however  unfavourable  to  composition ; 
bed-time  to  wit,  or  even  digestion-time.  Yet  these  re- 
markable men,  in  their  business  sacrifice  personal  repu- 
tation, and  see  it  enjoyed  by  moderate  writers  of  books : 
this  would  sour  a  petty  mind,  and  the  man  would  say, 
like  Lord  Camden,  "Let  authors  be  content  with  the 
reputation  they  gain ;  and  what  is  literary  property  to 
me  ?  I  have  no  stake  in  it."  But  these  gentlemen 
showed  themselves  higher-minded  than  Lord  Camden ; 
they  silenced  egotism,  and  rose  unanimously  to  the  lofty 
levels  of  international  justice,  and  sound  policy ;  and  it 
would  ill  become  me,  and  my  fellows,  in  Great  Britain 
and  America,  to  forget  this  good  deed,  or  to  pass  it 
by  without  a  word  of  gratitude  and  esteem. 

4.  With  less  merit,  because  we  were  interested,  every 
author  worthy  of  the  name  hailed  the  new  morality  Avith 
ardour.  The  American  authors  in  particular  conceived 
hopes  that  justice  and  sound  policy  would  cross  a  wider 
water,  than  the  ditch,  which  had  hitherto  obstructed  the 


EIGHTS   AND    ^YRO'NGS    OF   AUTHORS.  217 

march  of  justice  in  Europe;  and  they  organised  a  club 
to  support  the  movement,  with  Mr.  Bryant  for  president. 

I  myself  had  glorious  hopes  I  now  look  back  on  with 
bitter  melancholy.  I  was  one  of  the  very  few  men  who 
foresaw  a  glorious  future  for  the  British  drama.  It  was 
then  so  thoroughly  divorced  from  literature,  and  so  de- 
graded, that  scholars  in  general  believed  it  could  never 
again  rear  its  head,  which  once  towered  above  all  nations. 
But  I  was  too  well  read  in  its  previous  fluctuations,  and, 
above  all,  in  their  causes,  to  mistake  a  black  blight  on 
the  leaves  for  a  decayed  root.  England  is  by  nature  the 
most  dramatic  country  in  the  world ;  piracy,  while  it 
lasts,  has  always  been  able  to  overpower  nature,  and 
always  will ;  but,  piracy  got  rid  of,  nature  revives.  The 
condition  of  the  theatre,  in  1851,  was  this  —  a  province 
of  France,  governed  by  English  lieutenants,  writers  with- 
out genius,  petty  playwrights,  public  critics,  who  could 
get  their  vile  versions  of  a  Erench  play  publicly  praised 
by  the  other  members  of  their  clique.  The  manager  was 
generally  an  actor  thirsting  for  this  venal  praise.  If  he 
produced  an  original  play,  he  was  pretty  sure  not  to  get 
it ;  but,  by  dealing  with  the  clique  for  stolen  goods,  he 
secured  an  article  that  suited  him  to  a  T  ;  it  was  cheap, 
nasty,  praised.  The  first-class  theatres,  whose  large  re- 
ceipts qualified  them  to  encourage  the  British  inventor, 
barred  him  out  with  new  Erench  plays,  or  old  English 
ones  —  anything  they  could  steal ;  yet  they  could  spend 
£80  a  night  for  actors  and  singers. 

Haymarket  Theatre,  1851.  Opened  with  Macready's 
farewells.  Began  its  pieces^  Eebruary  4,  with  "  Good  for 
Nothing"  (Erench)  ;  Eebruary  6,  "Presented  at  Court" 
(Erench)  ;  March  3,  "  Don  Caesar  de  Bazan"  (Erench)  ; 
March  8,  "Othello;"  March  25,  "TartufEe"  (Erench); 


1>18  EEADTANA. 

March  27,  "Make  the  Best  of  It"  (French)  ;  April  21, 
'"  Arline "  (a  piratical  burlesque  of  an  English  opera)  ; 
May   3,   "  Ketired  from   Business  "  (English,  x>erha2)s)  ; 
May  26,  "  Crown  Diamonds  "    (French)  ;  June  18,  "  The 
Cadi "    (French)  ;  June  23,  "  John   Dobbs  "    (French)  ; 
June  24,  Mr.  Hackett,  an  American  actor,  in  Falstaff, 
&c. ;    July    1,    "  Grimshaw,  Bagshaw,  and    Bradshaw " 
(French)  ;  July  7,  "  Son  and  Stranger  "  (German)  ;  Aug- 
ust 13,  "  The  Queen  of  a  Day  "  (I  don't  know  whether 
original   or    French) ;    August    21,    "  His    First    Cham- 
pagne "  (French)  ;  "  Tartuffe  "  aoid  ''  The  Serious  Family  " 
(both  French) ;    September  10,  "  Grandmother  Grizzle  " 
(French);    October    11,    "La     Sonnambula"    (Italian), 
"Grandmother  Grizzle  "  (French),  and  "  Grimshaw,"  &c.  ; 
October  14,  "  Sonnambula  "  and  "  Mrs.  White  "  (French  ;) 
November    17,  "Charles  the  Second"  (French),  "God 
Save  the  King  "  —  a  Jacobite  song,  the  words  and  treble 
by  Henry  Carey,  the  bass  by  Smith  (Carey  sang  "  God 
Save   King   James "    till   the   tide  turned   against   the 
Stuarts,  and  carried  this  melody  with  it,  lines  and  all) 

"Eough   Diamond"   (French);  November  18,   "The 

Ladies'  Battle"  (French);  November  25,  "The  Two 
Bonnycastles  "  (French)  ;  November  26,  "  The  Beggar's 
Opera"  (Old  English);  December  9,  "The.  Man  of 
Law  "  (French)  ;  December  2,  "  The  Princess  Kadiant " 
(doubtful). 

The  Lyceum.  January  1  to  March  24,  "  King  Charm- 
ing "  (French  story  dramatised),  and  farces ;  March  24, 
"  Cool  as  a  Cucumber  "  (French)  ;  April  21,  "  Queen  of 
the  Frogs  "  (French  fairy  tale)  ;  May  20,  "  Only  a  Clod  " 
(French)  ;  June  4,  "  Court  Beauties "  (French)  ;  Octo- 
ber 2,  "Game  of  Speculation"  (French),  "Forty  and 
Fifty"  (French),  "Practical  Man"  (English,  I  think); 


RIGHTS   AND    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  219 

December  26,  "Prince  of  Happy  Land''  (Frencli  story 
dramatised).  This  is  no  selection,  but  the  whole  busi- 
ness of  these  first-class  London  theatres,  and  a  true  pic- 
ture of  the  drama  in  the  City  of  Shakespeare. 

I  comprehended  the  entire  situation,  and  saw  that  the 
new  treaty  was  a  godsend,  and  might  give  England  back 
her  drama,  if  supported  heartily.  I  visited  France,  and 
many  of  her  dramatists ;  we  hailed  the  rising  sun  of 
justice  together,  and,  as  good  words  without  deeds  are 
rushes  and  reeds,  I  gave  Auguste  Maquet  £40  for  his 
new  drama,  "Le  Chateau  de  Grantier." 

The  promised  Act  of  Parliament  came  out.  Alas  !  — 
what  a  disappointment !  A  penny  dole,  clogged  with  a 
series  of  ill-natured  conditions.  It  was  like  a  mother's 
conscience  compelled  to  side  with  a  stranger  against  the 
child  of  her  heart  —  "  Oh,  they  all  tell  me  he  is  a  black- 
guard ;  but  he  is  such  a  darling."  It  was  full  of  loop- 
holes for  the  sweet  pirate :  full  of  gins,  and  springes, 
and  traps  for  authors  and  honest  traders. 

International  Copyright.  —  The  State  sells  to  the  for- 
eign author  the  sole  right  of  translation  and  sale  in  Eng- 
land, for  a  petty  period,  on  cruel  conditions.  1.  —  He 
must  notify  on  the  title-page  of  the  original  work  that  he 
reserves  the  right  of  translation.  2.  —  He  must  register 
the  original  work  at  our  Stationers'  Hall  —  a  rat-hole  in 
the  City  --and  deposit  a  copy  gratis  within  three  months 
after  first  publication.  3.  —  Must  publish  authorised 
translation  in  England  within  one  year.  4.  —  Must 
register  that  translation,  and  deposit  a  copy  in  our  rat- 
hole,  within  a  certain  time.  — 15  &  16  Vict.  cap.  12. 
In  short,  the  State  is  "  Alma  mater  "  to  the  rascal,  "  in- 
justa  noverca''  to  the  honest  trader. 

The  poor  wretch,  protected  after  this  fashion,  glares 


220  READIANA. 

and  trembles,  and  sa^'s  to  liiniself,  '•' Ineedo  per  ignes." 
The  first  stipulation  is  reasonable,  and  all-sv/fficient ;  the 
rest  are  utterly  superfluous,  vexatious,  oppressive,  ill- 
vafiirefl.  If  the  foreign  author  and  his  assignee  escape 
by  a  miracle  all  these  gins,  springes,  and  author-traps, 
the  State  secures  them  for  five  years  only  what  was  their 
own  for  ever  jure  dlv'ino,  and  hy  the  laiv  of  France^  and 
by  the  universal  human  law  of  productive,  unsalaried 
labour,  without  any  gins,  springes,  or  ill-natured,  catch- 
penny conditions  whatever. 

International  stage-right,  15  &  16  Yict.  cap.  12. 

Stipulations  1,  2,  and  4,  same  as  above. 

3.  M-M^t  jpuhlish  the  authorized  translation  in  England 
within  three  months  of  registering  original  play,  &c. 

In  this  clause,  and  indeed  in  No.  2,  you  see  the  old 
unhappy  confusion  of  stage-right  Avith  copyright.  Why, 
in  the  name  of  common  sense,  is  the  dramatist,  because 
he  objects  to  be  swindled  in  a  theatre,  to  be  compelled 
to  publish?  Publication  is  not  a  dramatist's  market. 
There  is  no  sale  for  a  play -book  in  England  nowadays. 
How  can  the  poor  wretch  afford  to  translate  smd  jjublish 
a  translated  play,  of  which  the  public  would  not  take 
six  copies,  though  he  should  spend  £100  advertising? 
Such  imbecile  legislation  makes  one's  blood  boil.  Was 
ever  so  larcenous  a  tax  on  honesty  ?  It  is  a  pecuniary 
premium  on  Theatrical  Piracy  ;  that  kind  of  pirate  does 
not  print ;  he  merely  steals  and  sells  to  the  Theatre  ;  so 
his  "  alma  mater,"  and  our  "  injusta  noverca,"  does  not 
persecute  him  with  any  tyrannical  and  irrelevant  tax 
applicable  to  cop^/rirht,  but  not  to  stage-right.  It  only 
bleeds  the  everlasting  victim,  the  honest  author. 

But  there  was  worse  behind.  When  the  victim  of  ten 
thousand  wrongs  has  been  bled  out  of  all  the  money  it 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  221 

costs  to  publish  an  unsaleable  translation,  and  has  escaped 
the  gins,  springes,  author-traps,  and  probity-scourges, 
and  look;  for  his  penny  dole,  his  paltry  five  years'  stage- 
ri^ht,  then  he  is  encountered  with  a  perfidious  proviso. 

°"  Nothing  herein  contained  shall  be  so  construed  as 
to  prevent  fair  imitation  or  adaptation  to  the  Eng  ish 
stage  of  any  draanatic  piece  or  rausica  ^o-posi  ion 
published  in  any  foreign  country,  but  only  of  piratical 

translations." 

Now,  the  English  theatre  has  seldom  played  a  trans- 
lation; the  staple  piracy  from  1G62  to  1852,  and  long 
after,  was   by  altering  the  names  of  men  and  places 
from  French  to  English,  shortening  and  ynlgansmg  the    . 
dialogue,  and  sometimes  combining  two  French  pieces, 
and  sometimes  altering  the  sex  of  a  character  or  two ; 
sometimes,  though  very  rarely,  adding  a  charac  er  as 
Mawworm  in    "The  Hypocrite"    adapted  from       iar- 
tiiffe  "     But  Avhether  servile  or  loose,  the  versions  from 
French  pieces  were  adaptations,  not  honest  translations; 
and  all  the  more  objectionable,  since  here  a  dunce  grati- 
fies  his   vanity  as   well  as  his  dishonesty,  and  shams 
originality,  which  is  a  fraud  on  the  English  public  as 
well  as  on  the  French  writer  ;  moreover,  it  is  the  adap- 
tation swindle   that   turns  French   truths  into  English 
lies.     The  Legislature,  therefore,  appeared  to  say  t^^^s  : -— 
«  The  form  of  piracy  most  convenient  to  the  English 
dramatic  pirate  seems  to  be  not  direct  reproduction ;  but 
colourable  piracy.     We  will  profit  by  that  experience. 
We  will  compel  the  honest  dealer  to  translate  literally ; 
we  will  put  the  poor  devil  to  the  expense  of  publishing 
his  literal  translation.     :N^o  manager  will  ever  play  his 
literal  translation.     However,  to  make  sure  of  that,  we 
now  legalise  piracy  in  the  established  and  fashionable 
form  of  fair  adaptation  or  imitation." 


222  READIANA. 

This,  after  one's  experiences  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  petti- 
fogger, seemed  to  reveal  that  animal  at  work  defiling 
the  scheme  of  the  Latin  jurists,  and  ensnaring  his 
favourite  victim,  an  author's  property  :  and  so  it  turned 
out  to  be.  We  soon  learned  how  the  trick  had  been 
done ;  a  piratical  manager  had  employed  a  piratical 
writer  to  crawl  up  the  back  stairs  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  earwig  Lord  Palmerston,  and  get  this  proviso 
inserted  to  swindle  the  French  dramatist.  The  Minister, 
I  need  hardly  say,  did  not  realise  what  a  perfidy  he  was 
lending  himself  to,  and  the  French  Government  had  no 
chance  of  divining  the  swindle,  because  this  thief's  cant 
of  "  fair  adaptations  and  imitations ''  is  entirely  Eng- 
lish ;  the  Frenchman  did  not  even  know  what  the  words 
meant,  nor  are  they  translatable ;  "  imitations  faites  de 
bonne  foi "  has  quite  a  different  sense  from  "  fair  imita- 
tions ; "  and  how  could  they  suspect  that  a  great  nation, 
treating  with  them,  on  professedly  higher  views  of 
national  justice  than  had  heretofore  prevailed,  could 
hold  out  its  right  hand  to  receive  protection  of  its  main 
intellectual  export  —  magazines,  reviews,  histories,  biog- 
raphies, novels  —  yet  with  its  left  hand  slily  filch  away 
the  main  intellectual  export  of  the  nation  it  was  dealing 
with,  in  time  of  peace  and  in  declared  amity  ? 

History,  thank  God,  offers  few  examples  of  such  tur- 
pitude.* But  why  ?  It  is  only  because  legislators,  in 
protecting  any  other  class  of  property,  are  never  so 
weak  as  to  take  advice  of  pirates  —  a  set  of  God-aban- 
doned miscreants,  whose  advice  to  us,  and  to  you.  Brother 
Jonathan,  and  to  any  other  nation  on  the  globe,  is  always 
a  compound  of  Newgate  and  Bedlam. 

When  the  French  did  find  the  Satanic  juggle  out,  they 
concealed   neither   their   disgust   nor    their    contempt. 


EIGHTS   AXI)   WROXGS    OF   AtJTHORS.  223 

They  reminded  each  other  that  their  fathers  had  used  a 
certain  phrase,  "  Perfide  Albion,"  which  we  had  treated 
as  a  jest.  Was  it  such  a  jest  after  all?  Could  we  dis- 
cover a  more  accurate  epitaph  for  this  piece  of  dastardly 
juggling  ? 

Here  is  a  distich  they  applied  :  — 

Comptez  done  sur  les  trait^s  sign^s  par  le  mensonge, 
Ces  actes  solennels  avec  art  prepares  ; 

and  here  a  quatrain  on  the  "  fair  imitations ''  that  our 
Legislature  protected  and  secured  gratis  as  soon  as  ever 
it  had  decoyed  the  poor  honest  gull  into  the  expense  of 
publishing  the  translation  that  no  creature  could  try  to 
read  nor  theatre  would  play  :  — 

Quoiqu'en  disent  certains  railleurs, 

J'imite  et  jamais  je  ne  pille. 
Vous  avez  raison,  Monsieur  Drille  j 

Oui,  vous  imitez  —  les  voleurs. 

The  Satanic  proviso  that  disgraced  us  in  the  eyes  of  a 
noble  nation  recoiled,  as  it  always  does  and  always  will, 
Brother  Jonathan,  upon  the  nation  that  had  been  in- 
veigled into  legalising  piracy.  It  postponed  the  Great 
British  drama  for  another  quarter  of  a  century.  Colour- 
able piracy  of  French  pieces  being  legalised  instead  of 
crushed,  drove  the  native  dramatist  off  the  boards.  The 
shops  were  limited  by  monopoly  (6  and  7  Victoria),  and 
piracy  enabled  a  clique  of  uninventive  writers  to  monop- 
olise the  goods.  If,  by  a  miracle,  a  genuine  dramatist 
got  a  play  played,  then  piracy  punished  him  in  another 
way.  The  price  was  not  a  remuneration,  but  a  punish- 
ment, of  labour  and  skill.  I  saved  a  first-class  theatre 
from  bankruptcy,  with  a  drama.     I  received  only  £110; 


•224  READIANA. 

and  the  last  ten  pounds  I  had  to  county-court  the  man- 
ager for ;  gratitude  is  too  good  a  thing  to  waste  on  that 
etherial  vapour,  yclept  an  author.  For  "  Masks  and 
Faces,"  a  comedy  which  has  survived  a  thousand  French 
pieces,  and  more,  Mr.  Taylor  and  I  received  £150.  In 
France  it  would  have  been  £4,000.  For  "  Two  Loves 
and  a  Life,"  a  drama  that  has  been  j^laj^ed  throughout 
Anglo-Saxony,  and  is  played  to  this  day,  we  received 
£100.  In  France  it  would  have  been  worth  £5,000. 
The  reason  is,  a  manager  was — through  bad  legislation 
—  a  fence,  or  receiver  of  stolen  goods,  and  he  would 
only  pay  fence's  prices  even  to  inventors.  I  am  known, 
I  believe,  as  a  novelist ;  but  my  natural  gift  was  for  the 
drama :  my  greatest  love  was  for  the  drama ;  j^et  the 
Satanic  proviso,  and  the  colourable  piracy  it  inflicted 
on  the  nation,  drove  me  off  the  boards,  and  many  other 
men  of  similar  calibre.  I  beg  attention  to  this  not  as  a 
personal  wrong  ;  in  that  light  I  should  be  ashamed  to 
lay  it  before  the  English  and  American  public,  but  as 
one  of  a  thousand  useful  examples,  that  nature  gives 
way  before  piracy.  Able  men  always  did,  and  always 
must,  turn  from  their  natural  market,  choked,  defiled, 
and  lowered,  by  piracy,  to  some  other  less  congenial 
business,  where  there  is  fair  play.  This  is  how  Ameri- 
can literature  is  even  now  depopulated.  I  invite  evi- 
dence from  American  authors. 

The  Satanic  proviso  injured  the  drama.  A  French 
truth,  I  repeat,  may  be  an  English  lie ;  and,  as  the 
adapter  puts  English  names  of  men  and  places  to  French 
pieces,  this  happened  eternally.  The  maids  and  wives 
presented  on  the  English  stage  were  called  Mrs.  and 
!Miss  ;  but  the  situations  and  sentiments  were  French. 
Thus  the  women  of  England  were  habitualty  misrepre- 


RIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  225 

sented.  Now  tlie  public  gets  tired  of  a  shop  that  keeps 
selling  false  pictures  of  familiar  objects. 

The  Satanic  proviso  injured  our  drama  in  a  third  way. 
Property  never  blocks  the  theatre ;  piracy  always.  "  The 
Courier  of  Lyons  "  was  played  in  nearly  every  London 
theatre,  one  year,  1855  ;  and  made  the  theatre  unpopular 
by  monotony.  "  The  Corsican  Brothers  "  was  played  in 
every  London  theatre  without  exception,  and  in  many  of 
them  at  the  same  time.  In  the  drama's  healthy  day 
each  theatre  played  its  own  pieces.  But,  under  the  hoof 
of  piracy,  variety  is  crushed :  in  one  month,  viz.  May, 
1852,  the  Princess's  Theatre  played  "  The  Corsican 
Brothers,"  Surrey  Theatre  "  Corsican  Brothers,"  Hay- 
market  '^  0  Gemini ! "  —  a  burlesque  on  the  subject,  and 
Olympic  "  Camberwell  Brothers."  Adelphi,  which  had 
played  "The  Corsican  Brothers,"  was  playing  ''The 
Queen  of  the  Market "  ("  La  Dame  de  la  Halle " ) ; 
Strand,  "  The  Lost  Husband  "  (  "  La  Dame  de  la  Halle  "  ) ; 
Lyceum,  "  Chain  of  Events  "  (  "  La  Dame  de  la  Halle  "  ). 
As  for  "Don  Caesar  de  Bazan,"  that  piece  entirely 
blocked  the  first-class  London  theatres  for  months  ;  and 
I,  who  write  these  lines,  fled  to  Paris,  where  "  Don 
Caesar"  was  property,  merely  to  get  away  from  the 
doomed  city,  where  "  Don  Caesar,"  not  being  property, 
had  become  a  monotony-scourge,  and  an  emptier  of 
theatres  into  music-halls,  public-houses,  and  Baptist 
chapels. 

In  1859,  though  I  had  left  the  theatre  in  despair,  I 
still  thought  it  my  duty  to  combat  the  Satanic  proviso 
for  the  benefit  of  the  nation  and  of  other  dramatists, 
whom  it  would  otherwise  stifle,  as  it  had  me.  I  wrote  a 
book  denouncing  it  on  the  two  grounds  of  justice  and 
public  policy  :  and  I  appealed,  in  that  book,  to  the  com- 


226  READIANA. 

mercial  probity  and  good  sense  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  the  sense  of  honour  in  legal  matters  which 
resides,  theoretically,  in  the  bosom  of  the.  Peers.  I 
sowed  good  seed :  and  it  fell  among  stones.  I  hope  for 
better  luck  this  time.  But  were  I  sure  to  fail,  and  fail, 
as  long  as  I  live,  I  would  still  sow  the  good  seed,  that 
cannot  wholly  die  ;  for  it  is  truth  immortal. 

There  being,  at  that  time,  a  great  outcry  against 
American  piracy,  I  publicly  denied  that  the  United 
States  had  ever  been  guilty  of  any  act  so  dishonest,  dis- 
loyal, and  double-faced,  as  Great  Britain  had  committed 
by  treating  with  France  for  international  rights,  and 
contriving,  under  cover  of  that  treaty,  to  steal  the  main 
intellectual  property  of  that  empire ;  and  I  offered  to 
bet  £70  to  £40  this  was  so.  "  The  Eighth  Command- 
ment,''  p.  156.  I  refer  to  that  now,  because  it  is  a  fair 
proof  I  am  one,  who  can  hold  the  balance  between  my 
native  country  and  the  United  States ;  and  such  I  think 
are  the  men,  to  whom  that  great  Republic  should  lend 
an  ear  ;  for  such  men  are  somewhat  rare :  they  have 
some  claim  to  be  called  citizens  of  the  world,  and  are  as 
incapable  of  deliberate  injustice,  as  sham  patriots  are 
incapable  either  of  national  justice,  or  national  wisdom. 

In  1866  I  was  examined,  before  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, by  Mr.  Goschen,  and  cross-examined  by  members 
rather  hostile  to  my  views.  I  answered  150  questions, 
most  of  them  judiciously  put ;  and  full  a  third  of  them 
bore  on  the  effects  of  national  piracy  in  injuring  the  na- 
tion that  j^iVa^es.  Cross-examination  trebles  the  value 
of  evidence  ;  and  therefore  I  recommend  it  with  some 
confidence  to  the  study  of  those,  who  care  enough  for 
the  truth  in  these  matters,  to  prefer  the  sunlight  of  ex- 
perience to  that   jack-o'-lantern,  a  priori   reasoning.     I 


EIGHTS   AXD   WROXGS   OF   AUTHOES.  227 

have  no  time  to  quote  more  than  one  answer  :  —  If  you 
strike  out  that  clause  (the  Satanic  proviso),  I  pledge 
you  my  honour  as  a  gentleman  that  you  will  see  a  great 
drama  arise  in  England."  (Report  of  the  Select  Com- 
mittee on  Theatrical  Licences.  Price  35.  9d.  Index 
9d.     Hansard,  Great  Queen-street,  London.) 

1875. — Parliament  has  rescinded  the  Satanic  proviso, 
and  thereby  laid  the  first  stone  of  a  great  British  drama, 
as  time  will  show. 

Between  1852  and  1875  I  felt,  with  many  others,  that 
the  American  Legislature  is  cruel  and  unjust  to  authors  ; 
but  I  have  never  urged  it  with  any  spirit,  because  my 
noble  ardor  was  chilled  by  a  precept  of  the  highest  pos- 
sible authority  —  to  say  nothing  of  its  morality  and 
good  sense.  I  think  it  runs  to  this  effect,  errors  ex- 
cepted :  "  Take  out  first  the  beam  that  is  in  thine  own 
eye,  and  then  shalt  thou  see  clearly  to  take  out  the  mote 
in  Brother  Jonathan's  eye." 

Now  this  year,  Parliament  having  at  last  taken  the 
beam  out  of  my  eye,  I  do  see  my  way  to  address  a  re- 
monstrance to  that  great  nation,  which  hangs  aloof  from 
modern  progress,  and  selects  for  hatred,  contempt,  and 
outlawry,  while  living,  those  superior  men,  whose  dead 
bones  it  worships. 

CHAELES  EEADE. 

SIXTH  LETTER. 

Sir,  —  Intern ATioxAL  Copyright  with  America: 
—  The  question  has  been  mooted  for  forty  years,  and 
various  British  Governments  have  made  languid  move- 
ments towards  obtaining  justice  for  British  and  Ameri- 
can authors.     These   have  failed ;  languor  often  does  : 


228  READIANA. 

SO  now  faint-hearted  souls  say  "  Oh,  it  is  no  use  :  you 
might  as  Avell  appeal  to  the  Andes  against  snow,  or  to  a 
hog  in  his  neighbour's  garden  for  clemency  to  potatoes, 
as  ask  the  Americans  for  humanity  to  British  authors." 

Before  I  can  quite  believe  this,  they  must  write  out 
of  my  head,  and  my  heart,  that  this  American  people, 
torn  by  civil  war,  and  heart-sore  at  what  seemed  our 
want  of  principle  and  just  sympathy,  sent  over  a  large 
sum  of  money  to  relieve  the  British  cotton-spinners, 
whom  that  war,  and  their  own  imprudent  habits,  had 
brought  low.  Moreover,  I  can  never  despair  of  a  cause, 
because  it  has  been  bungled  forty  years.  There  is  a  key 
to  every  lock  ;  and,  if  people  will  go  on  trying  the  wrong 
keys  for  forty  years,  that  is  no  proof  that  the  right  key 
will  fail  for  forty  more.  To  find  the  right  key,  we  must 
survey  —  for  the  first  time  —  the  whole  American  situa- 
tion. It  comprises  five  parties ;  the  judges  —  the  Legis- 
lature —  the  authors  —  the  publishers  —  the  people. 

The  judges  —  what,  in  speaking  to  a  Frenchman,  we 
call  the  law  of  England,  is,  in  America,  the  common  law 
of  both  countries  :  our  common  ancestors  grew  it :  the 
American  colonists  carried  it  in  their  breasts  across  the 
Atlantic ;  and  it  has  the  same  authority  in  the  States  as 
here :  it  bows  to  legislative  enactments ;  but,  wherever 
they  are  silent,  it  is  the  law  of  the  land.  An  American 
lawyer,  who  cites  it  with  the  reverence  it  really  deserves, 
does  not  pay  us  any  compliment.  He  is  going  back  to 
the  wisdom  and  justice  of  his  own  ancestors.  Now  Con- 
gress not  having  meddled  with  international  copyright 
or  stage-right,  an  English  author's  copyright  in  New 
York,  A.D.  1875,  is  what  it  was  in  London  before  the 
Statute  of  Queen  Anne,  and  his  stage-right  what  it  was 
before  3  and  4  William  IV. 


I 


RIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  229 

Half  our  battle  is  won  in  the  courts  ;  for  the  American 
judges  concede  to  an  English  author  stage-right  in  un- 
printed  dramas.  "  Keene  v.  Wheatley ;  "  9  American  Law 
Reg.  23,  "  Crowe  v.  Aitken ; ''  4  Am.  Law  Review,  23, 
and  other  cases. 

And  they  concede  copyright  in  unpublished  manu- 
scripts ("Palmer  v.  De  Witt,"  &c.). 

If,  under  the  latter  head,  they  tied  the  sole  right  of 
printing  to  the  paper  and  handwriting  of  the  manuscript, 
our  case  would  be  hopeless.  But  they  disown  this  theory, 
and  give  a  British  author  the  incorporeal  right,  that  is,  the 
sole  right  to  print  his  composition,  though  the  pirate  may 
he  in  as  lawful  possession  of  a  copy  as  is  the  public  pur- 
chaser of  a  printed  book.  I  shall  now  prove  that  full 
international  copyright  is  included  in  that  admission. 

There  are  three  theories  of  copyright  at  common 
law :  — 

The  washerwoman's  theory. 

The  lawyer's  theory. 

The  mad  sophist's  theory. 

The  Washerwoman's  Theory.  —  That  there  can  be 
no  incorporeal  property  at  common  law.  An  author's 
manuscript  is  property.  If  another  misappropriates  it, 
and  prints  the  words,  that  is  unlawful ;  but  the  root  of 
the  offence  is  misappropriating  the  material  object,  the 
author's  own  written  paper.  Thus,  if  a  hen  is  taken  un- 
lawfully, to  sell  the  eggs  she  lays  after  misappropriation 
is  unlawful. 

The  lawyer's  and  the  sophist's  theory  both  rest  on  a 
fundamental  theory  opposed  to  the  above,  viz.  that  an 
author's  mental  labour,  intellectual  and  physical,  creates 
a  mixed  property,  words  on  paper ;  that  the  words  are 


230  KEADIANA. 

valuable  as  vehicles  of  ideas,  and  are  a  property  dis- 
tinct from  the  paper ;  and  only  the  author  has  a  right  to 
print  them  under  any  circumstances.  Examples:  — Pope 
wrote  letters  to  various  people :  they  paid  the  postage  ; 
the  paper,  and  the  inked  forms  of  the  letters,  became 
theirs,  and  ceased  to  be  Pope's.  Curll  possessed  this 
corporeal  property  lawfully.  Yet  Pope  restrained  the 
printing.     "Pope  v.  Curll." 

Lord  Clarendon  gave  a  written  copy  of  the  famous  his- 
tory to  a  friend.  That  gentleman's  son  inherited  it. 
Had  Lord  Clarendon's  heir  misappropriated  this  written 
paper,  he  could  have  been  indicted,  and  sent  to  gaol. 
Yet,  when  the  lawful  possessor  of  the  transcript  sent  it 
to  press,  with  the  words  on  it  not  written  by  the  author's 
hand,  but  conveying  the  author's  ideas.  Lord  Clarendon's 
heir  sued  him,  nearly  a  century  after  the  history  was 
composed,  and  obtained  heavy  damages.  ^^Duke  of 
Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare."  There  are  many  other  cases, 
including  ''  Macklin  v.  Eichardson,"  and  "  Palmer  v.  De 
Witt,"  lately  tried  in  New  York.  ..But  this  peculiar  po- 
sition in  '<  Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare,"  is  the  best  to  scru- 
tinise. A  is  the  lawful  possessor,  by  inheritance,  of  a 
transcript.  B  is  the  author's  heir.  If  B  steals  A's  trans- 
cript, he  can  be  indicted;  if  A  prints  his  own  transcript, 
he  violates  the  pure  incorporeal  copyright  of  B,  and  can- 
not be  indicted,  but  can  be  sued  on  the  case  for  violation 
of  a  property  as  incorporeal  and  detached  from  paper 
and  all  other  material  substance,  as  any  that  was  con- 
firmed to  an  author  by  Queen  Anne's  Statute,  or  the 
Acts  of  Congress  in  re. 

The  Lawyer's  Theory.  —  When  an  author  exerts 
this  admitted  incorporeal  right,  by  printing  and  publish- 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  231 

ing,  a  new  party  enters,  the  public  purchaser ;  he  ac- 
quires new  rights,  which  have  to  be  weighed  against  the 
author's  existing  right  strengthened  by  possession ;  for 
the  author  has  created  a  large  material  property  under 
his  title,  which  would  be  destroyed  as  property  if  his 
copyright  was  forfeited  by  publication. 

How  our  ancestors  dealt  with  this  situation  is  a  sim- 
ple matter  of  history ;  therefore  we  distrust  speculation 
entirely  and  go  by  the  legal  evidence. 

The  Mad  Sophist's  Theory  rejects  with  us  the 
washerwoman's  theory,  and  concedes  that  an  author  has, 
at  common  law,  intellectual  property,  or  copyright,  thus 
abridged  —  he  has  the  sole  right,  under  any  circumstances 
whatever,  to  print  his  unprinted  words.  But,  when  he 
publishes,  he  sells  the  volumes  without  reserve  ;  he  can- 
not abridge  his  contract  with  the  reader,  and  retain  the 
sole  right  under  which  he  printed.  He  has  abandoned 
his  copyright  by  the  legal  force  of  his  act,  and  this  is  so 
self-evident  that  the  sophist  declines  to  receive  evidence 
against  it.  Whether  copyright  in  printed  books  existed 
before  Queen  Anne's  Act,  he  decides  in  a  later  age,  whose 
modes  of  thinking  are  different,  by  a  2)riori  reasoning, 
and  refuses  to  inquire  how  old  the  word  ^'  copy  "  is,  or 
what  is  meant  under  the  Tudor  and  Stuart  Princess,  in 
acts  of  State,  licensing  Acts,  and  legal  assignments,  or 
to  look  into  the  case  of  ^'  Koper  v.  Streater,"  "  Eyre  v. 
Walker,"  or  any  other  legal  evidence  whatever. 

This  was  the  ground  taken  by  Justice  Yates  in  "  Mil- 
lar V.  Taylor."  He  founded"  a  school  of  copyright  so- 
phists, reasoning  a,  priori  against  a  four-peaked  mountain 
of  evidence.     He  furnished  the  whole  artillery  of  false- 


232  READIANA. 

hood,  the  romantic  and  alhuing  phrases  "  a  gift  to  the 
public,'  &c.,  the  equivoques,  and  confusions  of  ideas, 
among  which  the  very  landmarks  of  truth  are  lost  to 
unguarded  men. 

Since  it  is  this  British  pettifogger  who,  in  the  great 
Republic,  stands  between  us  and  the  truth  —  between  us 
and  law  —  between  us  and  morality  —  between  us  and 
humanity  —  between  us  and  the  eighth  commandment  of 
God  the  Father  —  between  us  and  the  golden  rule  of 
God  the  Son,  Judge  Yates  becomes,  like  Satan,  quite  an 
important  equivocator,  and  I  must  undeceive  mankind 
about  Judge  Yates  and  his  fitness  to  rule  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  mind. 

In  "  Millar  v.  Taylor,"  the  case,  that  has  given  Judge 
Yates  so  great  a  temporary  importance  in  England  and 
America,  the  main  question  was  a  simple  historical  fact : 
did  copyright  in  printed  books,  Avhich  preceded  legisla- 
tion in  France  and  Holland,  also  precede  in  England  a 
certain  enactment  called  Queen  Anne's  Statute  ?  No  a 
priori  reasoning  was  needed  here.  The  Latin  jurists 
used  none  to  ascertain  the  identical  fact  in  their  own 
country,  and  therefore,  with  no  better  evidence  than  we 
have,  they  are  unanimous.  We  are  divided  by  a  priori 
reasoning  on  fact. 

In  "  Millar  r.  Taylor  "  two  modes  of  searching  truth 
encountered  each  other  on  the  narrow  ground,  each  party 
rejecting  the  washerwoman's  theory,  and  admitting  pure 
copyright,  but  disputing  whether  in  England  it  was  for- 
feited by  publication. 

One  method  is  by  a  priori  reasoning,  and  was  the 
method  of  the  Greek  sophists,  and  mediaeval  schoolmen.. 

The  other  is  by  observation,  and  evidence,  and  is  the 
method  of  Lord  Bacon  and  his  pupils. 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  233 

Scholars  sometimes  permit  themselves  to  talk  as  if  the 
former  method  was  universal  in  the  ancient  world.  That 
statement  is  excessive.  Plain  men,  in  their  business, 
anticipated  the  Baconian  method  thousands  of  years 
ago,  as  the  jury  in  "  Millar  v.  Taylor  "  followed  it.  The 
Greek  sculptors  anticipated  it,  and  their  hands  reached 
truth,  while  the  philosophers,  their  contemporaries,  were 
roaming  after  their  will-o'-the  wisp, 

And  found  no  end  in  wandering  mazes  lost. 

There  was  the  pity  of  it ;  those,  who,  by  learning,  leis- 
ure, and  ability,  were  most  able  to  instruct  mankind, 
were  enticed  by  bad  example  and  the  arrogance  of  the 
intellect,  into  a  priori  reasoning,  and  diverted  from  docile 
observation ;  and  so  they  fell  into  a  system,  that  kept 
the  sun  out,  and  the  door  shut. 

The  other  system,  in  250  years,  has  enlightened  that 
world,  Avhich  lay  in  darkness. 

To  test  the  systems,  take  any  period  of  400  years  be- 
fore Lord  Bacon,  and  estimate  the  progress  of  the  world 
in  knowledge  and  useful  discoveries.  Then  take  the  250 
years  after  Lord  Bacon.  I  vary  the  figures,  out  of  jus- 
tice, to  allow  for  increased  population. 

Lord  Bacon  was  the  saviour  of  the  himian  intellect. 
He  discouraged  plausible  conjecture,  or  a  priori  reason- 
ing, and  taught  humble,  close  observation.  Thereby  he 
gave  the  key  of  the  heavens  to  Newton,  and  the  key  of 
nature,  and  her  forces,  to  the  physical  investigator,  and 
the  prying  mechanic.  Man  began  to  cultivate  the  humble 
but  wise  faculty  of  observation ;  it  grew  by  cultivation, 
and  taught  him  how  to  wrestle  with  nature  for  her  se- 
crets, and  extort  them.     There  is  scarcely  a  branch  of 


234  READIANA. 

useful  learning,  that  method  has  not  improved  500  per 
cent.  Of  course,  even  since  Lord  Bacon,  prejudice  has, 
in  holes  and  corners,  resisted  observation:  but  the  fuial 
result  is  sure.  A  priori  reasoning  bled  people  to  death 
with  the  lancet  for  two  centuries  after  Bacon :  but  Bacon 
has  conquered  the  lancet.  A  handful  of  Jesuits  will  tell 
you  that  the  historical  query,  whether  one  Bishop  of 
Rome  has  contradicted  another  in  faith,  must  not  be 
learned  from  contemporary  history,  but  evolved  by  in- 
ternal thought  a  thousand  years  afterwards.  AVell,  that 
medioeval  crotchet  will  go,  and  Bacon  stay.  And  so  it 
must  be,  sooner  or  later,  with  everything,  copyright  at 
common  law  —  the  national  expediency  of  piracy  —  the 
infallibility  of  men  with  mitres — everTjthing.  The  world 
has  tasted  Bacon.  It  will  never  eat  cobwebs  again  for 
long. 

To  put  the  matter  in  another  form  —  Such  of  our  com- 
mon ancestors.  Brother  Jonathan,  as  invented  phrases, 
were  nearly  always  acute  observers.  They  called  a  prodi- 
gal "  a  spendthrift,"  having  observed  how  often  that  char- 
acter dissipated  the  savings  of  another  man.  A  quarrel, 
with  almost  divine  sagacity,  they  called  not  "  a  diffi- 
culty," which  is  a  brainless  word,  but  a  misunderstoMd- 
ing,  and  they  called  a  madman  a  man  out  of  his  senses. 
Why  not  out  of  his  reason  ?  Well,  they  had  observed. 
The  madman,  who  did  not  fly  at  their  throats,  but  gave 
them  time  to  study  him,  did  nothing  but  reason  all  day, 
and  not  illogically ;  but,  blinded  by  some  preconceived 
idea,  could  not  see,  nor  hear,  nor  observe.  Intelligent 
madmen  have  busy  minds,  and  often  argue  speciously, 
but  start  from  some  falsehood  contradicted  by  their 
senses.  The  senses  are  the  great  gates  of  wisdom,  and 
to  the  lunatic  these  gates  are  always  more  or  less  closed 


RIGHTS    AXD    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  235 

by  prepossession.  Xow  events  distant  by  space  or  time 
cannot  be  seen  nor  heard  b}^  us,  but  by  persons  present. 
Where  they  get  recorded  at  the  time,  the  senses  of  the 
eye  witnesses  have  spoken  ;  and  the  pupil  of  Lord  Bacon 
must  have  recourse  to  the  senses  and  report  of  those 
persons.  Into  that  evidence  he  peers,  and  even  cross- 
examines  it,  if  he  can ;  and  he  can  sometimes  ;  for,  when 
a  dead  witness  makes  an  admission,  it  has  the  effect  and 
value  of  a  truth  extracted  from  a  living  witness  against 
his  will.  Where  contemporary  evidence  is  abundant,  and 
maniform,  it  is  very  reliable,  and  the  man,  who  opposes 
a  priori  reasoning,   or  preconceived   ideas,   to  it,   is  A 

LUNATIC    IX    THE    SECOND    DEGREE. 

I  feel  that  I  am  giving  a  large  key  to  unlock  a  small 
box ;  but  small  keys  have  failed ;  and  Cicero  says  well, 
"  Errare,  falli,  labi,  tam  turpe  est  quam  decipi."  I  will, 
therefore,  in  my  next  give  The  Baconian  method  v.  the 
method  of  the  ancients,  or  Millar  v.  Taylor,  showing  how 
an  English  judge  proved,  out  of  the  depths  of  his  inner 
consciousness,  that  copyright  at  common  law  could  not 
have  existed,  even  as  a  waggish  Oxford  professor  proved, 
by  the  same  method,  that  Napoleon  Bonaparte  could 
never  have  existed. 

CHARLES  EEADE. 

SEVENTH   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  The  poet  Thomson,  in  1729,  assigned  the  copy- 
right of  "  The  Seasons  "  to  Millar,  his  heirs  and  assigns 
for  ever.  In  1763  Taylor  printed  "  The  Seasons  "  and 
Millar  sued  him  :  the  case,  as  handled,  turned  mainly  on 
whether  copyright  in  printed  books  was  before  Queen 
Anne's  statute.     This  being  a  mixed  question  of  law  and 


286  READIANA. 

fact,  the  opinion  of  the  jury  was  taken  upon  documentary 
evidence,  the  records  of  Stationers'  Hall,  and  many  an^ 
cient  assignments  of  copyright  drawn  up  by  lawyers  long 
before  the  statute,  and  others  long  after  it.  The  defend- 
ant had  powerful  counsel :  so  this  evidence  doubtless 
was  sifted,  and  kept  within  the  rules.  The  jury  brouglit 
a  special  verdict,  in  which  are  these  words  —  "  And  the 
said  jurors,  upon  their  oath,  further  say  that  before  the 
reign  of  her  Majesty  Queen  Anne,  it  was  usual  to  pur- 
chase from  authors  the  perpetual  copyright  of  their 
books,  and  assign  the  same  for  valuable  considerations, 
and  to  make  the  same  the  subject  of  family  settlements." 
The  jury  here  were  within  their  province ;  they  swore 
not  to  a  matter  of  law,  but  to  a  custom,  in  which,  how- 
ever, la^vyers  at  different  epochs  had  taken  a  part  by 
drawing  the  legal  assignments.  Most  of  this  evidence 
has  melted  away,  but  the  sworn  verdict  of  twelve  un- 
prejudiced men  of  the  world  remains,  and,  by  the  law  of 
England  and  America,  overpowers  and  indeed  annuls^  all 
judicial  conjectures  in  this  one  matter  of  fact.  On  this 
basis  the  judges  discussed  the  laiv,  and  Lord  Mansfield, 
Mr.  Justice  Willes,  and,  above  all,  Mr.  Justice  Astoriy 
uttered  masterpieces  of  learning,  wisdom,  close  reason- 
ing, and  common  sense,  that  the  instructors  of  youth  in 
Harvard,  Oxford,  &c.,  would  do  well  to  rescue  from  their 
dusty  niche,  and  make  them  teachers  of  logic,  law,  and 
morals,  in  universities  and  schools.  They  built  on  all 
the  rocks  :  1st,  on  the  voice  of  conscience  ;  on  Meum  and 
Tuum  ;  on  the  sanctity  of  productive  labour ;  on  the  title 
of  labourer  A  to  the  fruits  of  A's  labour,  and  the  p7'imd 
facie  absence  of  a  title  in  B  to  the  fruits  of  A's  labour 
without  a  just  equivalent.  2nd,  on  the  universal  admis- 
sion  that  an  author  alone  has  a  right  to  print  his  written 


EIGHTS   AXD   WEONGS   OF   AUTHOES.  237 

words,  and  on  the  legal  consequence  that  by  exercising 
this  sole  right  and  creating  a  large  material  property 
under  it,  he  keeps  the  right  alive,  not  dissolves  it,  since 
common  law  abhors  divestiture  of  an  admitted  right,  and 
loss  of  property  created  by  invitation  of  law. 

From  these  j^rincixjles  they  went,  3rdly,  to  special  evi- 
dence^ and  traced  the  history  of  the  exclusive  right  to 
print  published  books;  showed  it  at  a  remote  period 
called  by  the  very  technical  and  legal  name  the  statute 
adopted  centuries  later ;  proved  the  recognition  of  this 
right  by  name  in  proclamations  and  decrees,  and  Eepub- 
lican  ordinances,  and  three  parliamentary  licensing  Acts 
under  three  different  Sovereigns  prior  to  Queen  Anne's 
statute ;  the  entire  absence  of  dissent  in  the  old  judges, 
and  their  uniform  concurrence  when  speak  they  did; 
their  dicta  in  re,  and  their  obiter  dicta  —  as  that  "the 
statute  of  Charles  II.  did  not  give  the  right  (copyright), 
but  the  action : "  and  "  of  making  title  to  a  copyright," 
and  of  "  a  copy  '^  being  a  propert}^  paramount  to  the 
King's  grant,  and  so  on  —  and  then  they  cited  law  cases 
in  a  series,  beginning  with  "  E-oper  v.  Streater,"  long  be- 
fore the  statute,  and  continued  in  equity  long  after  the 
statute  upon  titles  created  long  before  the  statute,  as 
"  Eyre  v.  Walker,"  where  the  assignment  of  the  copyright 
was  in  writing  dated  1657,  and  "  Tonson  v.  Walker," 
where  the  assignment  (Milton's  "Paradise  Lost")  was 
dated  1667 :  "  Motte  v.  Falkner,"  &c.  They  also  cited 
the  preamble,  or  historical  preface,  of  the  statute  itself, 
and  other  matters.  This  reveals  the  Baconian  method, 
and  the  true  legal  method,  which  goes  by  principles  rest- 
ing on  large  induction,  and  applicable  to  all  citizens,  im- 
partially ;  and  by  the  best  direct  evidence  accessible. 
Against  the  Washerwoman's  theory  they  cited   "Pope 


238  EEADIANA. 

V.  Curll,"  and  ''  Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare."  Judge  Yates 
accepted,  though  rather  sullenly,  "Pope  v.  Curll,  "and 
"Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare,"  and,  in  stating  his  own 
theory,  forswore  the  washerwoman.  He  admitted  that, 
before  the  statute,  if  any  person  printed  an  author's 
words  without  his  express  consent  to  print  them,  he 
acted  unlawfully,  although  he  came  hy  them  hy  legal 
rneans,  as  by  loan  or  devolution.  The  word  "  devolu- 
tion "  he  used  expressly  to  keep  within  "  Queensbury  v. 
Shebbeare"  (4  Burroughs,  237^). 

But  from  that  point  he  parted  company  with  the 
judges  and  the  jury,  and  undertook  to  prove,  out  of  the 
depths  of  his  inner  consciousness,  that  the  incorporeal 
right,  which  in  "Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare,"  prevailed 
against  sixty  years'  lawful  possession  of  a  written  copy, 
could  not  ^^ossi^Zy  have  continued  against  five  minutes' 
lawful  possession  of  a  printed  copy  :  —  (risurn  teneafis, 
amiciy 

Yates.  —  "  Goods  must  be  capable  of  possession,  and 
liave  socie  visible  substance :  for,  without  thau,  nothing 
is  capable  of  actual  possession."  "  jSTothing  can  be  an 
object  of  property  which  has  not  a  corporeal  substance," 
&c.     This  proposition  repeated  about  six  times. 

"The  author's  unpublished  manuscript  is  corporeal. 
But  after  publication  by  the  true  proprietor,  the  mere 
intellectual  ideas  in  a  book  are  totally  incorporeal,  and 
therefore  incapable  of  any  distinct  separate  possession ; 
they  can  neither  he  ^  seizedj  forfeited,  nor  j^ossessed,  &c.,'  " 
and  this  discovery  he  repeated  often,  and  rang  the 
changes.  "  Can  the  sentiments  themselves,  apart  from 
the  paper,  be  taken  in  execution  for  a  debt  ?  In  case 
of  treason,  can  they  be  forfeited?     If  they  cannot  be 


EIGHTS   AXD    WEONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  239 

seized,  the  sole  right  of  publishing  them  cannot  be  con- 
fined to  the  author.  There  can  be  no  property  where 
there  can  be  no  forfeiture,"  &c.,  &c. 

Behold  the  lunatic  in  the  second  degree  !  His  senses, 
if  he  had  not  been  out  of  them,  revealed  that  copyright 
in  printed  books  existed  by  law  while  he  spoke,  and  yet 
that  ideas  were  incorporeal,  and  could  not  be  seized  nor 
forfeited ;  nor  the  sentiments  taken  in  execution.  The 
nature  of  ideas  throughout  creation  was  the  same  before 
and  after  Queen  Anne's  little  trumpery  statute ;  yet  here 
is  a  lunatic  in  the  second  degree,  who  either  says  Queen 
Anne's  Parliament  had  repealed  God  Almighty  in  this 
particular,  or  says  nothing  at  all ;  for  the  sole  point  in 
dispute  is.  Did  copyright  in  printed  books  exist  amongst 
English  human  beings,  before  Queen  Anne's  statute,  as 
it  did  amongst  French  human  beings,  before  any  special 
enactment  —  or  did  it  exist  in  written  works  only  ? 
Who  but  a  lunatic  in  the  second  degree  cannot  see  that 
the  sole  right  of  printing  unpublished  ideas,  is  the  very 
same  property  in  the  ideas  as  the  sole  right  of  reprinting 
the  same  ideas,  and  that  all  publication  can  do  is  to  let 
in  another  claimant  to  the  right  of  printing,  viz.,  the 
public  purchaser. 

As  to  all  his  "  galimatias  "  that  there  can  be  no  prop- 
erty detached  from  a  visible  substance  —  the  fool  has 
gone  and  blundered  into  the  washerwoman's  theory, 
and  blundered  out  of  the  insane  sophist's.  The  insane 
sophist  began  with  disowning  the  washerwoman.  She, 
poor  wretch,  is  contradicted  not  only  by  "  Roper  v, 
Streater,"  but  by  "Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare,"  and 
"  Pope  V.  Curll,"  the  cases  Yates  admits.  But  Lord 
Mansfield  collared  the  insane  sophist  and  would-be 
washerwoman  on  this,  and  literally  pulverised  his  wash- 


240  READIANA. 

erwomau's  twaddle,  with  fifteen  sledge-hammer  sentences 
beginning  thus :  —  "It  has  all  along  been  expressly 
admitted,"  and  ending  "  under  a  commision  of  bank- 
ruptcy." 

I  do  not  cite  the  pulverising  paragraphs,  because  there 
is  no  need.  Yates's  attempt  to  smuggle  in  the  washer- 
woman's theory  under  the  insane  sophist's,  is  self-evident, 
and  has  failed  utterly ;  for  to  "  Pope  v.  Curll,'  and 
"  Queensbury  v.  Shebbeare,"  are  since  added  "  Macklin 
V.  Richardson,"  and  "  Palmer  v.  De  Witt,"  both  death- 
blows to  the  washerwoman's  theory.  Pahner  v.  De 
Witt. —  Robertson,  English  dramatist,  wrote  a  comedy, 
*'  Caste,"  and  played  it  all  over  England,  but  did  not 
publish.  He  assigned  the  copyright,  and  stage-right,  at 
common  law,  to  Palmer,  an  American  citizen.  De  Witt 
published  •'  Caste "  in  New  York.  Palmer  sued  him, 
and  the  case  was  settled,  by  judgment  for  Palmer,  who 
was,  in  law,  the  English  author.  (  New  York  Court  of 
Appeals,  Feb.  27,  1872.)  The  judgment  lies  before  me. 
There  was  no  violation  whatever  of  the  manuscript. 
Nothing  was  misappropriated  but  the  naked  right  to 
print  and  publish  a  composition,  to  which  enormous  pub- 
licity has  been  given  by  twenty  prompt  copies  and  fifty 
sets  of  parts,  and  representation  in  fifty  theatres  at 
least.  Therefore  this  American  Court  of  very  high 
authority  has  gone  with  Lord  Mansfield,  and  other  great 
lawyers,  and  swept  the  very  mainstay  of  Judge  Yates's 
sophistry  away  for  ever. 

This  narrows  the  question  to  forfeiture,  or  non-forfeit- 
ure, by  publication,  of  copyright  at  common  law.  Now 
this  soi-dlsant  forfeiture.  Queen  Anne's  Parliament  treat, 
in  the  preamble,  or  historical  prelude,  as  a  inaljpracticey 
a  violation  of  property;  they  say  it  is  unjust  —  cruel  — 


KIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  241 

and  new  ;  which  is  pre-statutory  evidence  in  the  statute 
itself.     Yates  gives  Queen  Anne's  Parliament  the  lie, 
and  undertakes  to  prove,  out  of  the  depths  of  his  inner 
consciousness,  that  this  malpractice  was  — at  the  very 
moment  when  Parliament  denounced  it,  and  prepared,  m 
imitation  of  preceding  Acts,  to  punish   it  as  a  misde- 
^eanour—just,  reasonahle,  and  old.     Having   set  this 
very  Parliament  above  the  Creator,  he  now  sets  it  below 
Yates.     However,  his  argument  runs  thus  :  he  says  that 
we  authors  put  forward  ideas  and  sentiments,  as  the 
direct  object  of  property  at  common  law  in  old  times, 
and  insult  common  sense  and  justice  in  pretending  that 
we  could  publish  our  ideas,  yet  reserve  the  right   of 
printing  those  ideas  for  publication.     This  is  plausible, 
and  paves  the  way  for  his  romantic  phrases  that  have 
intoxicated  ordinary  minds,  such  as  "the  act  of  publica- 
tion, when  voluntarily  done  by  the  author  himself,  is 
virtually  and  necessarily   a  gift  to  the  public:'     Then 
handling  it  no  longer  as  a  donation  but  under  the  head 
of  implied  contracts,  which  is  a  much  sounder  view  of 
the  author's  sale  to  the  public  purchaser,  he  says,  neatly 
enough,  the  seller  delivers  it  without  restriction,  and  the 
buyer  receives  it  without  stipulation.     Then  he  jumps 
to  this  droll  inference  :  —  "  Nothing  less  than  legislative 
power  can  restrain  the  use  of  anything."    This,  however, 
is  a  purely  chimerical  distinction ;  the  common  law  was 
founded  partly  on  Roijcd  statutes,  largely  conceived,  and 
resembling  maxims ;  and  limited  uses  are  not  altogether 
unknown  to  it ;  every  river  is  a  highway,  over  which  the 
public  can  pass,  and  even  bathe  in  it,  without  infringing 
property ;  but  not  always  fish ;  and  a  right  of  way  ob- 
tained  by  use,  or  leased  to  the  churchwardens,  under 
which  the  public  can  lead  its  cow  across  a  freeholder's 


242  KEADIANA. 

field,  gives  no  right  to  graze  her  iqjon  the  j^ath  ;  and,  if 
I  let  the  public  into  my  tea-garden  at  sixpence  a  head  tu 
eat  all  the  fruit  they  can,  no  express  stipulation  is  re- 
quired to  reserve  the  fruit  trees.  Moreover,  Yates's  posi- 
tion is  too  wide ;  it  lets  in  other  nations  ;  now  the  French 
and  Dutch  common  law  give  it  the  lie  direct  in  copyright 
itself ;  so,  if  we  must  reason  a  priori^  the  chances  are 
fifty  to  one  the  English  common  law  gave  it  the  lie  too. 

But  this  is  our  direct  reply —  for  the  multiplying 
ppwer  of  the  press  is  so  unique,  it  excludes  all  close 
comparisons  —  so  far  from  claiming  a  property  in  ideas, 
that  is  the  very  thing  the  holders  of  copyright  at  com- 
mon law  did  not  claim.  That  is  the  claim  of  the  paten- 
tees alone,  as  I  shall  show  in  the  proper  place. 

So  far  from  ideas  becoming  incorporeal  after  publica- 
tion, &c.,  which  statement  of  Yates'  is  a  "  galimatias," 
and  an  idiotic  confusion ;  ideas  are  incorporeal  only  at  a 
period  long  antecedent  to  publication  —  viz.  while  they 
lie  in  the  author's  mind. 

An  author  connects  his  ideas  with  matter  once,  and 
for  ever,  when  he  embodies  them  in  a  laboured  sequence 
of  words  marked  by  his  hand  on  paper.  These  written 
words  are  matter,  by  collocation,  laboured  sequence,  and 
the  physical  strokes  of  a  pen  with  a  black  unguent ;  mat- 
ter, as  distinct  from  the  paper  as  gas  is  from  the  pipe, 
and,  though  they  convey  mental  ideas,  the  written  words 
themselves  are  not  so  fine  a  material  as  gas,  which  yet 
is  measured  and  sold  by  the  foot.  The  phrase  "  intel- 
lectual labour"  is  an  equivoque  and  a  snare  that  has  de- 
luded ten  thousand  minds.  It  applies  somewhat  loosely 
to  study ;  but  an  author's  j^^'odiictlve  labour  is  only  one 
species  of  skilled  labour ;  it  is  physical,  plus  intellectual, 
labour,  and  those  compositions  which  led  to  common-law 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  243 

rights  were  the  result  of  long,  keen  labour,  intellectual 
and  physical,  proved  to  be  physical  by  the  vast  time 
occupied  —  whereas  thought  is  instantaneous  —  and  by 
shortening  the  life  of  the  author's  body,  through  its 
effects  on  the  blood-vessels  of  the  brain,  which  are  a 
part,  not  of  the  mind  but  of  the  bod3^  The  said  vessels 
get  worn  by  an  author's  productive  labour,  and  give  way. 
This,  even  in  our  short  experience,  has  killed  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  and  perhaps  Lytton.  The  short  life  of 
authors  in  general  is  established  by  statistics.  See 
Nelson's  "Vital  Statistics." 

The  words  are  the  material  vehicle  of  the  ideas ;  the 
paper  is  the  material  vehicle  of  the  words. 

The  author  has,  by  admission  of  Yates,  the  sole  right 
to  do  as  follows,  and  does  it :  —  He  takes  the  written 
words,  which  are  the  vehicle  of  his  ideas,  to  the  printing 
compositor,  and  the  compositor  takes  printed  letters 
identical  with  the  author's,  though  differing  a  little  in 
shape  —  but  that  is  a  mere  incident  of  the  day ;  in  the 
infancy  of  printing  they  were  identical  in  shape,  only 
worse  formed  —  he  sets  the  letters  in  forms,  and  passes 
them  to  the  pressman.  For  this  the  compositor  charges 
say  £28.  With  the  pressman,  and  not  with  the  com- 
positor, who  is  a  copyist  for  the  Press,  begins  the  Press. 
Now  comes  the  mechanical  miracle  which  made  copy- 
right necessary  and  inevitable ;  the  Press  can  apply  dif- 
fereyit  sheets  to  the  same  metal  letters  conveying  the 
composition;  thus  a  thousand  different  paper  volumes 
are  created  in  which  the  letters  and  the  author's  compo- 
sition are  one,  but  the  volumes  of  paper  a  thousand. 
The  volumes  are  now  ready,  hut  not  issued :  and  I  beg 
particular  attention  to  the  author's  admitted  position  at 
common  law  one  moment  before  publication.     He  has 


24-4  READIANA. 

still,  by  law  (Yates  assenting),  the  sole  right  to  print, 
and  publish  ;  he  has  created,  for  sale,  a  thousand  vol- 
umes, under  an  exclusive  legal  right  to  create  volumes 
for  sale :  he  has  added  to  his  original  legal  right  three 
equities :  —  1st,  priority  of  printing,  which  is  nothing 
against  a  legal  title,  but  something  against  a  rhapsodical 
title ;  2nd,  the  peculiar  expense  of  setting  up  type  from 
written  words  ;  3rd,  occupanc}^ ;  and  the  equitable  right 
to  sell  again  the  thousand  volumes,  a  large  material  prop- 
erty created  under  an  exclusive  legal  title  founded  on 
morality  and  universal  law,  and  conceded  by  Judge 
Yates.  For  the  force  of  occupancy  added  to  title,  see 
Law,  i^asslm  ;  and  for  the  force  of  the  above  special 
equity,  see  "  Sweet  v.  Cator." 

Well,  the  ma7i  in  possession  of  the  legal  right,  and 
also  of  the  additional  equities,  and  also  of  the  material 
volumes,  now  does  a  proper  and  rational  act,  by  which 
the  public  profits  confessedly,  an  act  such  as  no  man 
was  ever  la^vfully  punished  for  ;  he  publishes,  or  sets  in 
circulation,  his  one  composition  contained  in  many  paper 
vehicles.  He  sells  each  volume  say  for  six  shillings  to 
the  trade,  eight  shillings  to  the  public  reader.  What 
he  intends  to  sell  to  the  public  reader  for  eight  shillings, 
is  —  paper  and  binding,  two  shillings ;  printers'  work, 
sixpence ;  useful  or  entertaining  knowledge,  alias  his  own 
labour,  four  shillings ;  the  right  of  using  the  ideas  in 
many  ways,  of  even  plagiarising  and  printing  them  re- 
worded, and  also  the  right  of  selling  again  the  very 
thing  the  purchaser  bought  —  the  one  material  volume 
with  its  mental  contents.  Prima  facie,  the  contract,  so 
understood,  is  not  an  unjust  one  to  the  buyer,  nor  an 
extortionate  one  for  the  seller.  His  profit,  on  these 
terms,  does  not  approach  the  retail  trader's,  who,  in  prae- 


EIGHTS    AKD    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  245 

tice,  is  the  seller  to  the  public,  yet  forfeits  nothing  by  the 
sale.  Now  it  is  a  maxim  of  the  common  law,  that  where 
two  interpretations  of  a  contract,  expressed  or  implied, 
are  possible,  one  that  gives  no  great  advantage  to  either 
party,  and  the  other  that  gives  a  monstrous  advantage  to 
one  party,  the  fairer  interpretation  is  to  be  preferred, 
since  men,  meeting  in  business,  are  presumed  by  the  law 
to  exchange  equivalents :  and  this  rule,  established  by 
cases,  applies  especially  where  a  whole  class  of  contracts 
is  to  be  interpreted.  Please  observe  that  the  ground  I 
am  upon,  viz.  of  implied  contracts,  was  selected  by  Yates, 
and  I  ask  which  interpretation,  Yates's  or  ours,  agrees 
with  the  undisputed  common-law  doctrine  of  equiva- 
lents ? 

The  purchase  of  books  is  a  lottery.  But  there  are  a 
host  of  prizes.  Lord  Bacon's  works  gave  the  public 
purchaser  a  great  deal  more  than  a  thousand  million 
pounds'  worth  of  knowledge  and  power;  yet  he  made 
no  extra  charge  to  justify  a  claim  on  his  copyright 
founded  on  purchase  of  his  volumes.  The  great  books 
balance  the  little :  and  the  buyer  has  the  choice.  Col- 
onel Gardiner  was  converted  in  an  afternoon,  from  vi- 
cious courses,  not  by  a  vision,  but  a  duodecimo  ;  and  that 
is  a  fact  attested  by  Jupiter  Carlyle.  —  I  didn't  find  it 
in  my  intestines,  where  Yates  looks  for  facts.  Many 
men,  about  the  very  time  of  "  Millar  v.  Taylor,"  ascribed 
the  salvation  of  their  souls  to  a  copy  of  Doddridge's 
"  Kise  and  Progress  of  Keligion  in  the  Soul."  If  a 
pupil  of  Yates,  before  purchase  of  Doddridge,  that  would 
be  a  great  improvement  in  a  reader's  prospects  —  for  85. 
Besides,  after  he  has  been  converted  from  Yates's  reading 
of  the  8th  of  Anne,  to  Doddridge's  reading  of  the  8th  of 
Moses,  and  his  soul  saved,  &c.,  he  can  lend  or  sell  the 


246  EEADIANA. 

volume.  Then  why  pillage  Doddridge  for  un-Yatesing 
him,  and  saving  his  soul  dirt  cheap  ?  Find  me  the 
party  to  any  other  contract,  who  can  eat  his  cake,  yet 
sell  it  afterwards,  like  the  honest  purchaser  of  a  good 

volume. 

CHARLES  EEADE. 

EIGHTH  LETTER. 

Sir,  —  The  next  intellectual  article  the  insane  sophist 
opposes  to  evidence  is  vituperation,  or  mendacity  trad- 
ing upon  popular  prejudice.  "  It  is  a  monopoly  opposed 
to  the  great  laws  of  property,"  &c.,  repeated  ten  times. 

Now  gauge  his  logic.  He  says  :  1.  The  sole  right  of 
printing  a  man's  own  composition  is  a  perpetual  property 
at  common  law.  2.  If  the  proprietor  exerts  that  perpet- 
ual right  lawfully,  to  the  benefit  of  himself  and  the  com- 
munity, and  law,  mistaking  him  for  a  felon,  divests  him 
of  it,  the  good  citizen  forfeits  his  pro2)erty.  3.  If  law 
declines  to  abjure  its  abhorrance  of  forfeitures,  and  does 
not  divest  him  of  his  sacred  property,  the  sacred  ^:)?'o/?- 
erty  becomes  'monopoly.  How  ?  by  bare  retention  ?  by 
non-forfeiture  ?  by  continuation  ?  Did  ever  continua- 
tion or  non-forfeiture  of  a  property  metamorphose  that 
property  into  a  monopoly  ?  So  then  if  my  hen  and  her 
chickens  run  upon  a  common,  and  law,  having  imbibed  a 
spite  against  feathered  property,  lets  the  public  in  to 
scramble  for  them,  I  can  scramble  with  the  lot,  but 
lose  my  property  in  my  hen  and  chickens.  But  if 
law  declares  they  are  mine  still,  though  my  blind  confi- 
dence has  made  it  very  easy  to  pirate  them,  then  my 
property  in  my  hen  and  viy  chickens  becomes  a  mo- 
nopoly—  which  word  means  the  sole  right  to  sell  any 


EIGHTS    AKD    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  247 

hens  or  amj  chickens  whatever.  Is  this  a  lunatic,  or  a 
liar  ?  —  or  both  ? 

I  have  no  theory  of  my  own  about  monopoly.  I 
merely  apply  settled  truths  that  idiots  repeat  like 
cuckoos  but  cannot  apply.  Monopoly  is  defined  in  the 
law  books,  and  justly  defined,  to  be  "  an  exclusive  right 
to  sell  any  species  of  merchandise  "  —  "  genus  quoddam 
mercaturse." 

Property  is  a  wider  right  over  a  narrower  object.  It 
is  the  sole  right  of  keeping,  destroying,  leasing,  or  sell- 
ing, not  a  species  of  merchandise,  but  only  that  individ- 
ual specimen  of  merchandise,  or  those  individual  speci- 
mens, which  happen  to  be  the  man's  own  by  law.  One 
well-known  historical  feature  of  monopoly  is  that  it  was 
the  creature  of  Royal  prerogative ;  another  that  it  has 
always  clashed  in  trade  with  undoubted  property.  In 
this  kingdom  are  now  no  literary  monopolies,  but  there 
is  one  dramatic  monopoly,  viz.  the  exclusive  right  of 
the  licensed  managers  to  represent  any  play  what- 
ever—  yours,  mine,  or  theirs  (6  and  7  Victoria).  But 
literary  monopolies  infested  the  ages  Anachronist  Yates 
misrepresents ;  and  those  men  of  the  common  law  he 
underrates  —  and  they  were  great  masters  of  logic  com- 
pared with  him  —  always  called  them  by  their  right 
name,  "  Patents."  Under  Henry  YIII.,  one  Saxton  had 
the  sole  right  to  sell  printed  maps  and  charts,  and,  under 
Elizabeth,  Tallis  and  Bird,  to  sell  music.  Both  were 
vetoes  on  a  species  —  nature,  monopoly  —  name,  a  patent 
—  root,  prerogative.  The  owners  of  copyright  groaned 
publicly,  again  and  again,  under  these  infractions  of 
their  property  by  prerogative  patents  ;  and,  after  the  sec- 
ond revolution,  when  prerogative  was  staggering  under 
repeated   blows,  literary  property,  or  copyright,  took  a 


248  READIANA. 

literary  patent  or  monopoly  boldly  by  the  throat,  in 
*'  Koper  V.  Streater."  Streater,  laiv  patentee,  had,  from 
the  Crown,  the  sole  right  to  sell  law  reports  by  whomso- 
ever ivritten.  This  was  monopoly  —  an  exclusive  right 
to  sell  a  species  of  literary  composition.  Roper  bought 
of  Judge  Croke's  executor  the  copyright  or  sole  right  to 
reprint  Judge  Croke's  reports,  and  line  his  trunk  with 
them  or  sell  them  —  which  is  property. 

And  this  muddle-head  Yates  could  look  with  his  moon- 
calf's eye  at  "  Roper  v.  Streater,"  yet  call  literary  prop- 
erty in  a  man's  own  (by  purchase)  printed  composition, 
a  monopoly,  even  when  he  saw  literary  monopoly  and 
literary  property  cheek  by  jowl  in  a  court  of  law  — 
fighting  each  other  as  rival  suitors  —  and  the  monopoly  in 
a  species  of  books  declaring  its  nature,  its  distinctive 
title  "  patent,"  and  its  root  in  prerogative  ;  and  the  liter- 
ary property  declaring  its  nature,  its  distinctive  title, 
copyright,  and  its  root  in  common  law.  So  that,  in 
"  Roper  V.  Streater,"  the  plaintiff  gives  Yates  the  lie  on 
behalf  of  property ;  the  defendant  gives  him  the  lie  on 
behalf  of  monopoly  ;  and  the  judges  give  him  the  lie  in 
'the  name  of  the  common  law,  when  he  calls  copyright  in 
a  man's  own  printed  book  "  a  monopoly  contrary  to  the 
great  laws  of  property.^''  In  my  very  first  letter  I  offered 
the  statesmen  and  lawyers  Yates  has  gulled  with  this  fal- 
lacy a  bet  of  £150  to  £50  a  man's  copyright  in  his  own 
printed  book  is  property,  and  not  monopoly ;  yet  of  all 
the  men  who  are  so  ready  to  swindle  authors  at  home 
and  abroad  out  of  a  million  pounds  by  means  of  this 
pettifogger's  lie,  not  one  has  had  the  honesty  nor  the 
manhood  to  risk  £50  of  his  own  against  £150  of  an 
author^s,  upon  the  lie.  I  hope  the  world  will  see  through 
this,  and  loathe  it,  and  despise  it,  as  I  do. 


EIGHTS   AND    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  249 

To  sum  up  tlie  bag  of  moonshine.  —  To  any  man  who 
has  read  history  at  its  sources,  as  Mansfield  and  Black- 
stone  did,  Yates's  whole  picture  of  old  England  is  like  an 
historical  novel  written  by  an  unlettered  girl.  She 
undertakes,  like  him,  to  present  antiquity  ;  and  what  she 
does  portray  is  the  little  bit  of  her  own  age  she  has 
picked  up,  its  thoughts  and  phrases.  Under  the  Tudors 
and  the  Stuarts  her  characters  are  impregnated  with 
modern  views  of  liberty,  and  rhapsodise  accordingly  : 
they  have  even  a  smattering  of  ^'  political  economy  "  and 
let  you  know  it ;  and  they  say  "  the  Sabbath  "  —  "  illu- 
sions "  —  "  developments  "  —  "  to  burke  an  inquiry  "  — 
"  the  fact  of  my  being  so  and  so,"  meaning  "  the  circum- 
stance of  my  being  so  and  so,"  —  and  her  counsel  address 
the  jury  for  a  criminal,  and  you  may  thank  your  stars 
if  Lady  Jane  Grey  does  not  lay  down  her  Longinus  (of 
whom  there  was  not  a  copy  in  the  kingdom)  and  waltz 
with  the  Spanish  Ambassador.  The  sentiments  and 
the  phrases  Judge  Yates  ascribes  to  men  under  the 
Tudors,  the  Stuarts,  the  Commonwealth,  and  the  Dutch- 
man, are  all  pure  anachronisms,  quite  as  barefaced  to 
any  scholar  as  those  in  a  virgin's  novel.  Old  England 
never  personified  "  the  public,"  as  Yates  fancies  it  did, 
and  "  Eur  Publicola,"  or  the  patriot  thief  of  copyright^ 
was  yet  unborn.  The  men  who  built  seven  gables  to  one 
house,  and  breakfasted  on  ale,  had  no  such  extravagant 
anticipations  of  liberty  as  to  despoil  private  property  in 
its  sacred  name.  Indeed  "  copy  "  was  a  word  oftener  used 
than  "  liberty,"  under  James  L,  and  even  when  liberty 
began  to  struggle,  it  was  against  power  in  high  places, 
not  property  in  low  ones.  It  cut  down  prerogatives  ;  it 
did  not  run  away  with  fig-trees  because  the  proprietor 
sold  it  the  fiffs.     The  tall  talk,  the  bombastical  men- 


250  READIANA. 

dacity,  "publication  of  a  volume  being  a  (j'lft  of  the  copy- 
right to  the  imhlic "  —  "a  property  in  ideas,"  &c.,  all 
this  rhapsodical  rubbish  emanated  from  romantic  petti- 
foggers, gilding  theft,  at  a  known  date  —  namely,  be- 
tween 1740  and  1765,  and  the  ideas  were  not  a  month 
older  than  the  varnish,  for  they  were  all  invented,  not 
by  judges,  but  by  counsel  for  the  defence  of  post-statu- 
tory piracies.  Find  me  this  slip-slop  defiling  the  mouths 
of  the  old  judges. 

So  much  for  a  priori  reasoning  against  evidence. 
What  else  was  to  be  expected  ?  The  system  of  reason- 
ing that  kept  the  world  dark  for  ages,  it  would  be  odd 
indeed  if  that  system  could  not  darken  a  single  subject, 
and  turn  so  small  a  thing  as  a  pettifogging  judge  into 
so  common  a  thing  as  a  lunatic. 

The  Baconian  Method  v.  the  Method  of  the  Dark 

Ages. 

Evidence  on  one  line  may  mislead :  but  concurrent 
evidence  —  never.  By  concurrent  evidence  I  mean  veins 
of  evidence  starting  from  different  points,  but  conver- 
ging to  one  centre.  Three  distinct  coincidences  pointing 
to  one  man  as  a  murderer,  have  always  hanged  him  in 
my  day.  I  have  many  examples  noted.  Almost  the 
greatest  concurrence  of  heterogeneous  evidence  on  any 
historical  fact  whatever^  is  that  which  proves  copyright 
at  law  in  printed  books  before  Queen  Anne  ;  which  also 
proves  an  Englishman  has  full  copyright  in  the  United 
States. 

First  let  me  ask  —  AVhat  is  A  word  ?  The  insane 
sophists  seem  to  fancy  it  is  a  thing,  or  else  air.  It  is 
neither.  It  is  defined,  and  justly,  by  the  logicians,  "  the 
current  sign  of  an  established  thing."     It  can  never  pre- 


KIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  251 

cede  the  thing  signified.  We  all  know  the  "word-making 
process ;  for  we  have  all  seen  it.  There  was  no  word 
more  wanted  than  "  telegram,'^  yet  it  was  not  coined  till 
years  after  the  thing  signified.  I  saw  the  verb  "  to 
burke "  created.  It  was  coined  about  six  months  after 
Burke,  who  smothered  folk  for  the  anatomists,  was  hung ; 
but  it  took  years  to  penetrate  the  kingdom.  When  a 
word  gets  to  be  used  by  different  classes,  governing  and 
governed,  that  is  the  voice  of  the  nation,  and  its  'cur- 
rency shows  the  thing  to  be  full-blown  and  long-estab- 
lished. It  is  simply  idiotic  to  look,  with  moon-calf  eye, 
at  an  ancient  popular  word,  and  bay  the  moon  with  con- 
jectures that  no  ancient  thing  was  signified. 

Heads  of  the  evidence  against  forfeiture  of  copyright 
by  publication. 

1.  The  word  "  copy  "  from  the  Tudor  Princes  to  Queen 
Anne's  statute,  and  in  the  statute,  and  after  the  statute, 
always  used  to  signify  the  sole  right  of  printing  before 
and  after  publication.  That  alone  bars  Yates's  theory 
that  publication  dissolves  the  property. 

2.  The  ancient  use  of  this  technical  word  in  discon- 
nected things  and  ijlaces,  yet  always  to  denote  property 
and  occupation.  Example  A.  —  Entries  of  sales  and 
transfers  of  copyright,  from  1558  to  1709,  at  Stationers' 
Hall,  by  occupiers.  Proviso  in  1582  that,  where  the 
King  had  licenced  any  individual  to  print,  the  licence 
should  nevertheless  be  void,  if  the  copyright  belonged  to 
another.  B.  —  Recognition  of  "  copy  "  as  property  in 
Acts  of  the  Star  Chamber,  and  Republican  ordinances, 
both  valid  as  historical  evidence,  and  in  the  licensing 
Acts  of  Parliament  13  and  14  Charles  II.,  1  James  II., 
c.  7,  4  William  and  Mary.  c.  24,  which  are  evidence,  and 
something  more,  since,  in  all  these,  Royal  Parliaments, 


252  READIAKA. 

having  the  same  powers  as  Queen  Anne's,  protected,  by 
severe  penalties,  that  very  property  at  law  in  published 
books  which  Yates  divines  out  of  his  inside  had  expired 
by  publication.  Either  these  licensing  Acts  were  copy- 
right Acts  —  which  is  absurd  —  or  they  protected  copy- 
right as  it  existed  for  ever  at  common  law.  Here 
"  copy,"  or  "  copyright,"  might  very  well  imitate  Des 
Cartes,  and  say,  "  Protegor  ;  ergo  sum."  C.  —  XTse  of 
the  old  word  "  copy,"  in  Queen  Anne's  statute.  The  first 
statute  on  any  matter  is  written  under  the  common  law. 
Even  this  truism  has  escaped  the  babblers  on  copyright. 
In  Queen  Anne's  Act,  the  word  "  copy  "  is  used  six  times 
in  its  common-law  sense ;  and  it  is  first  applied,  viz.  in 
sect.  1,  not  to  manuscripts  on  the  eve  of  publication,  but 
to  printed  books ;  and  the  preference  antiquity  had  for 
the  printed  book  over  the  MS.  is  here  continued  ;  twenty- 
one  years  the  minimum  term  to  a  published  book,  four- 
teen to  a  MS.  on  the  eve  of  publication.  Is  that  how 
Yates  talks  about  the  MS.  and  the  book  ?  D.  —  Recog- 
nition of  the  word,  and  thing,  in  business.  Public  and 
notorious  sales  of  ancient  copyrights,  some  of  them 
famous :  "  The  Whole  Duty  of  Man  ;  "  Dry  den's  copy- 
rights, both  dramatic,  and  epic ;  Milton's,  Southern's, 
Rowe's,   and  some   of   Defoe's,   Swift's,  and   Addison's. 

E.  — Several  assignments  of  "  copy  "  for  ever,  that  now 
survive  only  in  the  verdict  of  the  jury,  "  Millar  v.  Tay- 
lor." A  vast  number  drawn  after  the  statute  upon  the 
perpetual  common-law  right :  one,  referred  to  in  a  former 
letter,  survives  in  print,  "  George  Barnwell,"  ed.   1810. 

F.  —  The  use  of  the  word  "  by  lawyers  "  in  these  pre- 
statutory  agreements,  also  in  the  declaration  "  Ponder  v. 
Brady  1,"  an  action  on  the  case  brought  for  piratical  print- 
ing of  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  "  of  which  "  —  so  runs 


EIGHTS   AND    WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  253 

the  plaint  —  "  the  plaintiff  was,  and  is,  the  true  proprie- 
tor ;  whereby  he  lost  the  profit  and  benefit  of  his  ^  copy.'  " 
This  brief  and  technical  statement  of  the  grievance  is 
not  like  a  pleader  groping  his  way  by  periphrasis  to  a 
doubtful  right.     The  pleader  is  on  a  beaten  track. 

3.  The  terms  on  which  Milton  leased  the  copy  of 
"  Paradise  Lost  "  to  Simmons,  in  1667.  £5  for  the  first 
edition,  £5  for  the  second  edition,  £5  for  the  third. 
(See  Todd's  "  Life  of  Milton.")  This  contradicts  Yates, 
and  his  theory  of  forfeiture  by  publication,  as  precisely 
as  A  can  contradict  B  in  advance.  When  the  liar  speaks 
first,  true  men  can  fit  the  contradiction  to  the  lie,  in 
terms ;  but,  when  the  honest  men  speak  first,  the  liar 
can  evade  their  direct  grip,  by  choice  of  terms ;  for  he 
has  the  last  word.  Put  yourself  in  the  place  of  Sim- 
mons ;  if  you  were  a  publisher,  and  publication  forfeited 
copyright,  would  you  agree  to  give  an  author  the  very 
same  sum  for  the  second  edition,  and  the  third,  as  for 
the  first  ?  I  am  quite  content  to  refer  Simmons' s  treaty 
with  Milton  to  Messrs.  Harper  and  Co.,  Messrs.  Osgood, 
Ticknor  and  Co.,  Messrs.  Appleton  and  Co.,  Messrs. 
Sheldon  and  Co.,  New  York  publishers.  They  shall  de- 
cide between  Yates  and  me.  Mr.  Justice  Yates  says 
Simmons's  was  an  agreement  with  Milton,  under  the 
common  law,  for  the  mere  sale  of  early  sheets,  and  I  say 
Mr.  Justice  Yates  is  a  romancer.  Now  multiply  this 
evidence  by  a  hundred.  We  only  know  this  business 
(Milton  and  Simmons)  through  the  accidental  celebrity 
of  the  book ;  but  the  jury,  in  1769,  had  a  pile  of  exam- 
ples before  them. 

4.  The  subsequent  history  of  "  Paradise  Lost."  Paid 
by  Simmons  to  John  Milton  £b  in  1667.  In  1669,  £5 
for  the  second  edition.     In  1674,  £5  for  the  third  edi- 


254  llEADIANA. 

tioii,  paid  to  Milton's  widow.  In  1G80,  sale  of  the  copy- 
right, for  £8,  Dame  Milton  to  Simmons.  Simmons,  in 
two  years,  sold  the  copyright  to  Aylmer  for  £25  :  and 
Aylmer,  1G83,  sold  half  to  Tonson,  and,  in  1G90,  the 
other  half,  for  a  considerable  sum.  Soon  after  that  a 
vast  public  sale  set  in ;  yet  Tonson  held  the  copyright 
undisturbed.  The  temptation  was  strong :  but  so  was 
the  common  law.  It  was  never  pirated  till  1739,  sev- 
enty-two years  after  first  publication.  It  was  no  sooner 
pirated  than  Tonson  moved  the  court.  It  had  no  pro- 
tection under  the  Act.  That  protection  expired  in  1731. 
A  judge,  who  was  a  ripe  lawyer  before  Queen  Anne's 
statute,  and  knew  the  precedent  common-law  right,  re- 
strained the  piracy  at  once  under  the  common  law, 
"  Tonson  v.  Walker." 

Legal  History  — 1667-1710,  protected  by  common  law 
alone,  and  never  pirated.  1710-1731,  protected  by  com- 
mon law  and  statute.  1732  to  1774,  by  common  law 
only.     Protected  by  injunction,  1739,  and  again  in  1751. 

5.  The  verdict  of  the  special  jury  in  "  Millar  v.  Tay- 
lor." They  were  not  men  blinded  by  any  preconceived 
notion ;  they  were  twelve  men  of  the  world  ;  they  sifted 
the  evidence,  and  found  disjunctively  that  it  was  "  usual, 
before  Queen  Anne,  to  purchase  from  authors  perpetual 
copyrights,  and  to  assign  the  same  from  hand  to  hand, 
and  to  make  them  the  subject  of  family  settlements  : " 
all  those  disjunctive  findings  are  equally  good  against 
the  public  claimant,  unless  Yates  can  prove  it  was  also 
the  custom  before  Queen  Anne  to  settle  Bagshot-heath, 
and  Wimbledon-common,  and  ten  turnpike  roads  upon 
son  Dick,  with  a  mortgage  to  nephew  Tom,  and  a  re- 
mainder to  cousin  Sal.  His  legal  objection  that  custom 
short   of   immemorial  cannot  make  a  legal  title  is  spe- 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  255 

cious.  But  he  forgets  ;  tlie  root  of  our  title  is  not  in 
anything  so  short  as  what  lawyers  call  immemorial  cus- 
tom. Our  title  is  acquired  by  productive  labour,  and  is 
personal  property  —  a  legal  right  six  times  as  old  as  the 
British  nation.  The  narrow  question  of  fact  the  jury 
dealt  with  was  this  —  was  it  usual  for  the  act  of  publi- 
cation to  dissolve  in  one  moment  the  perpetual  right 
Judge  Yates  admits,  a  right  acquired  not  by  custom,  if 
you  please,  but  by  productive  labour  and  universal  law  ? 
For  its  modest  office  of  interpreter  of  law,  applied  to  so 
narrow  a  matter  as  non-forfeiture  of  an  admitted  right, 
the  custom  of  two  hundred  years  (solidified  by  a  law 
case  or  two),  and  contradicted  by  no  elder  nor  concur- 
rent custom,  is  more  than  sufficient  —  "  consuetudo  in- 
terpres  legum."  The  special  jury  were  educated  men ; 
impartial  men ;  sworn  men ;  many  men  ;  unanimous 
men ;  Yates  was  one  unsworn  man,  with  a  bee  in  his 
bonnet.  The  twelve  jurors  were  the  constitutional  tri- 
bunal, chosen  of  old  by  the  Kingdom,  and  still  chosen  by 
the  great  Republic  to  try  such  issues.  The  one  Yates 
was,  as  respects  this  issue,  an  unconstitutional  tribunal 
appointed  by  himself,  and  no  more  sworn  to  try  that  issue 
than  Dr.  Kenealy  was  sworn  to  try  the  issues  in  the 
"  Queen  v.  Baker." 

The  verdict  of  that  jury  is  law  ;  and  the  usage  of  the 
kingdom  for  ages  before  Queen  Anne  is  proved  to  be  non- 
forfeiture by  publication,  and  proved  on  evidence  since 
dispersed ;  and  therefore  proved  to  the  end  of  time. 

6.  The  preamble  of  the  statute.  This  is  pre-statutory 
evidence,  and  Yates  says  it  accords  with  his  views. 
The  reader  shall  judge.  I  will  draw  a  preamble  hon- 
estly embodying  his  views  —  as  every  candid  mind  shall 
own  —  and  I  will  place  it  cheek  by  jowl  with  Queen 
Anne's  prelude. 


256  KEADIANA. 

Preamble  a  la  Yates.  Preamble  of  the  Act  8th 

Whereas,  for  the  greater  en-  Anne. 
courageinent  of  writers  and  Whereas  printers,  booksel- 
other  learned  men,  to  produce  lers,  and  other  persons,  have  of 
h\borious  and  useful  books  of  late  frequently  taken  the  liberty 
lasting  benefit  to  mankind,  it  is  of  printing,  reprinting,  and  pub- 
expedient  to  restrict,  for  certain  lisliing  books,  and  other  writ- 
times,  and  under  certain  condi-  ings,  without  the  consent_,of  the 
tions,  that  just  liberty,  which  authors,  or  proprietors,  of  such 
the  subjects  of  this  realm  have  books  and  writings,  to  their  very 
hitherto  enjoyed,  of  reprinting  great  detriment  and  too  often  to 
and  publishing  all  such  works  the  ruin  of  them  and  their  fami- 
as  by  publication  have  become  lies ;  for  preventing  therefore 
common  property;  be  it  enacted,  such  practices  for  the  future,  be 
&c.  it  enacted,  &c. 

I  make  no  comment.  I  but  invite  ripe  men  to  inspect 
this  as  intelligently  as  girls  do  Sir  Octopus.  Eyes  and 
no  eyes  have  muddled  copyright  long  enough. 

7.  Law  cases.  A.  — "  Roper  v.  Streater/'  King's 
Bench.  Alias  copyright,  or  literary  property,  v.  mo- 
nopoly. 

Judgment  of  the  whole  Bench  for  copyright  at  law 
against  monopoly  and  prerogative. 

B.  —  "  Roper  v.  Streater."     House  of  Lords. 

The  Lords  admitted  perpetual  copyright  at  law,  but 
declared  the  King  had  a  paymaster's  claim  to  Judge 
Croke's  reports  because  he  paid  the  judges  and  acquired 
a  copyright  in  their  decisions.  Thus  they  smuggled  him 
in  as  proprietor  at  coTnmon  laia.  Yates's  theory  of  for- 
feiture by  publication  never  occurred  to  the  mind  of  any 
judge,  either  in  the  King's  Bench  or  the  House  of  Lords. 

C.  —  The  injunctions  soon  after  the  statute.  Here 
there  are  two  things  to  be  considered.  1st.  A  judge 
does  not  roll  out  of  his  cradle  on  to  the  woolsack.     Sir 


EIGHTS   AKD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  257 

Joseph  Jekyl  was  a  ripe  lawyer  in  1700,  wlieii  "  Eoper 
V.  Streater  "  was  tried  in  the  Lords.  He  saw  the  com- 
mon-law right  long  before  the  statute,  and  went  by  it 
after  the  statute,  and  against  the  literal  words  of  thfe 
statute ;  for  they  affix  a  term,  and  so  could  never  suggest 
a  new  perpetual"  right.  In  1735  he  restrained  a  piracy 
on  "  The  Whole  Duty  of  Man,"  published  in  1657 
("  Eyre  v.  Walker  "). 

2nd.  In  those  days  an  injunction  really  meant  "an 
injunction  to  stay  waste  of  some  i^vopertij  not  disputable 
at  law"  Where  there  was  a  shadow  of  doubt  at  West- 
minster no  equity  judge  would  ever  grant  an  injunction. 
This  is  notorious.  Consequently  the  injunctions  granted 
on  the  perpetual  common-law  right,  by  judges  so  timid, 
are  evidence  not  only  of  their  own  adhesion  to  the  per- 
petual common-law  right,  but  proofs  that  all  the  con- 
temporary judges  at  Westminster  concurred  tacitly. 
Agreeably  to  this  Lord  Mansfield  distinctly  declares  that 
the  first  doubt,  which  ever  arose  about  the  perpetual 
right,  was  in  "  Tonson  v.  Collins  ;  "  and  the  Court  of 
Chancery,  on  hearing  a  mere  whisper  of  that  doubt 
down  at  Westminster,  instantly  refused  the  injunction, 
because  of  the  doubt,  though  they  did  not  share  it.  I 
myself  know  from  quite  another  source  that  they  even 
suspended  their  proceedings  in  "Macklin  v.  Richard- 
son "  because  "  Millar  v.  Taylor "  was  pending  in  the 
King's  Bench.  Therefore  the  chain  of  injunctions  they 
granted  between  1735  and  1751,  on  the  perpetual  com- 
mon-law right,  were  post-statutory  acts  by  pre-statutory 
minds  representing  the  whole  judicial  opinion  of  the 
nation  before  and  after  the  statute. 

8.  Admissions.  —  This  is  the  highest  kind  of  evi- 
dence.    A.  —  Milton  attacked  a  parliamentary  licensing 


258  KEADIANA. 

Act  with  great  spirit.  When  a  man  falls  upon  a  meas- 
ure in  the  heat  of  controversy  he  is  seldom  nice.  Yet 
this  polemic  and  great  enthusiast  for  liberty  drew  the 
rein  at  private  property,  and  solemnly  approved  the 
constitutional  clause  in  the  Act,  the  severe  protection  of 
copyright.  B.  —  The  petitioners  to  Parliament  in  1703. 
It  was  their  interest  to  make  a  strong  case  for  parlia- 
mentary interference.  Yet  they  admitted  they  had  an 
action  on  the  case  against  pirates,  and  had  no  fears  of 
a  verdict ;  but  could  not  get  sufficient  damages,  nor 
enforce  them,  because  the  pirates  were  paupers.  The 
force  of  this  unwilling  evidence  has  never  been  justly 
appreciated. 

C.  —  A  Legal  Phenomenon,  —  Judge  Yates  had  a  peck 
at  several  minor  cases,  but  never  once,  in  a  discourse 
that  lasted  three  hours,  did  he  dare  to  touch  ''  Koper  v. 
Streater,"  either  in  the  King's  Bench  or  the  House  of 
Lords.  Now  when  a  lawyer  dare  not  call  his  own  princi- 
pal witness,  we  all  know  fact  is  dead  against  him ;  and, 
when  he  affects  to  ignore  the  leading  case  against  him, 
that  means  he  cannot  get  over  the  law  of  that  case,  and 
knows  it.  Of  course  a  more  honest  judge  would  have 
faced  it,  and  either  got  over  it,  or  else  given  in  to  it. 
Indeed,  there  is  no  other  recorded  instance  in  which  a 
dissentient  puisne  judge  ever  shirked  the  leading  case 
relied  on  by  the  chief  of  his  court  and  the  other  puisnes 
in  any  case  so  fully  reported  as  "  Millar  v.  Taylor." 
It  is  phenomenal.  Every  practical  lawyer  knows  in  his 
heart  what  it  means,  and  it  is  a  game  that  only  pays 
with  dull  or  inexperienced  men.  To  us,  who  know 
courts  of  law,  and  the  tact  of  counsel  in  gliding,  with  a 
face  of  vituline  innocence,  over  what  they  cannot  en- 
counter, it  is  but  shallow  art ;  for  it  flows  the  gaff  5  and 


RIGHTS    AND    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  259 

the  critic  goes  at  once  to  the  ignored  case,  to  see  why  it 
luas  ignored.  Well,  Yates  ignored  "Roper  v.  Streater  " 
because  he  wanted  people  to  believe  two  infernal  false- 
hoods —  (1)  that  perpetual  copyright  at  law  in  printed 
books  did  not  exist  before  Queen  Anne,  and  (2)  that, 
had  it  existed,  it  would  have  been  a  monopoly  opposed  to 
property.  Now,  in  both  these  particulars.  Roper,  or 
property,  gave  him  the  lie  —  Streater,  or  monopoly,  gave 
him  the  lie  —  and  all  the  judges,  in  both  courts,  gave 
him  the  lie.  That  is  why  he  evaded  "  Roper  v.  Streater," 
and  the  unprecedented  evasion  is  evidence  that  he  knew 
it  smashed  him. 

Thus  "Palmer  v.  De  Witt,"  and  the  other  cases, 
backed  by  common  sense  and  universal  law,  prove  a 
man's  perpetual  incorporeal  property  in  the  fruit  of  his 
own  skilled  labour.  That  law,  deviating  from  all  its 
habits,  divested  a  man  of  so  sacred  a  right  because  he 
exercised  it,  is  a  chimera  supported  only  by  a  priori  rear 
soning  and  romantic  phrases  born  about  1750,  and  un- 
known to  the  old  judges.  First  we  answer  a  fool  accord- 
ing to  his  folly,  and  pull  his  chimera  to  pieces.  Then 
we  answer  him  not  according  to  his  folly,  but  on  the 
great  Baconian  method.  And  now  this  is  clear  ;  either 
Bacon  was  an  idiot,  or  Yates  was  an  idiot.  We  prefer 
Bacon,  and  to  go,  in  a  matter  of  fact,  by  the  general 
usage,  and  the  sense  of  the  old  kingdom,  sworn  to  on 
evidence  by  a  jury,  and  confirmed  and  solidified  by  a 
chain  of  reported  law  cases,  beginning  before  the  statute 
and  continuing  by  the  force  of  common  law  after  the 
statute,  in  a  perfect  catena ;  also  the  obiter  dicta  of  the 
old  judges,  and  their  dicta  ad  rem,  all  which  heteroge- 
neous evidence  is  "  uncontradicted  by  any  usage,  book, 
judgment,  or  saying."     Teste  Lord  Mansfield.     So  then 


260  EEADIANA. 

"  Robertson  v.  De  Witt "  and  the  complete  proof  stipra 
of  non-forfeiture  by  publication  at  common  law  give  us 
copyright  in  printed  books  in  the  United  States.  We 
claim  it  from  the  judges  at  Washington,  should  we  be 
driven  to  fight  it  in  that  form,  and  meantime  we  appeal 
to  their  consciences  to  back  us  with  the  Legislature  of 
their  country.  For,  if  Kobertson,  making  twenty  copies 
of  "  Caste,"  and  fifty  sets  of  parts,  which  is  multiplica- 
tion of  copies  in  a  way  of  trade,  and  handing  the  parts 
to  two  hundred  different  actors  —  a  reading  public  — 
and  delivering  the  words  for  money  to  about  a  million 
spectators  who  pay,  cannot  by  the  common  law  be  pil- 
laged of  his  sole  right  to  print  and  publish,  what  a  farce 
it  is  to  pretend  on  grounds  of  common  law  that  another 
British  writer,  for  publishing  a  book  and  selling  one 
hundred  copies  in  Great  Britain,  can  be  lawfully  de- 
spoiled in  the  United  States  of  his  sole  right,  in  spite 
of  Blackstone  and  Mansfield,  and  on  the  ground  of  a 
mere  variation  in  the  mode  of  publicity  and  the  way  of 
selling.  By  such  reasoning  law  is  divorced  from  com- 
mon sense  and  from  all  ancient  interpretation  and  usage, 
and  from  even  the  shadow  of  morality.  Now  law  exists 
not  for  the  sake  of  law,  but  of  morality. 

CHARLES   READE. 


NINTH  LETTER. 

Sir,  —  The  power  of  judges  is  often  crippled  by  pre- 
cedents, that  revolt  their  consciences  and  their  sense ; 
but  a  Legislature  is  happier ;  the  justice  it  sees,  that  it 
can  do.  Now,  when  literary  property  was  first  seriously 
discussed  in  the  States,  the  question  whether  copyright 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  261 

is  a  property  or  a  monopoly,  a  natural  right  or  a  crea- 
ture of  prerogative,  had  just  been  discussed  in  England, 
and  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  read  <'  Millar  v. 
Taylor"  and  "Donaldson  v.  Becket,"  and  decided  be- 
tween the  dwarf  sophist  Yates,  and  the  great  lawyer 
Mansfield,  in  very  clear  terms.  I  beg  particular  atten- 
tion to  this,  that  Justice  Yates  pointed  to  the  title  of 
Queen  Anne's  statute,  as  "  an  Act  for  the  encouragement 
of  learning,  by  vesting  the  copies  (  copyrights )  of  printed 
books  in  the  authors  or  purchasers,"  and  said  very  fairly 
that  the  term  "  vested  "  implied  that  the  right  did  not 
exist  before,  in  the  opinion  of  Parliament.  To  this 
Lord  Mansfield  replied  that  the  title  of  an  Act  is  no  part 
of  an  Act;  an^l  that  in  the  body  of  the  Act  the  word  "  to 
vest  "  is  not  used,  but  the  word  "  to  secure/^  and  that  the 
preamble  would  decide  the  question,  even  if  a  title  could 
be  cited  against  the  body  of  an  Act,  for  the  preamble  is 
full  and  clear  in  its  recognition  of  the  then  existing 
property. 

In  March,  1783,  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
gave  judgment  on  this  question  of  title  v.  body  and 
preamble,  as  precisely  as  if  Mansfield  and  Yates  had  re- 
ferred it  to  them.  They  passed  their  first  Copyright 
Act  under  this  title —  "  An  Act  for  the  purpose  of  secur- 
ing to  authors  the  exclusive  right  and  benefit  of  publish- 
ing their  literary  productions  for  twenty-one  years." 
Having  elected  between  "  vest "  and  ''  secure "  in  their 
title,  they  passed  to  the  second  point ;  and,  to  leave  no 
shadow  of  a  doubt  as  to  their  views,  drew  such  a  pre- 
amble, as  even  Mr.  Justice  Yates,  who  affects  to  mis- 
understand Queen  Anne's  preamble,  could  hardly  twist 
from  its  meaning ;  and  I  shall  be  grateful  to  any  Amer- 
ican critic,  who  will  do  American  and  English  authors 


262  READIANA. 

SO  much  justice  as  to  inspect  the  comparative  preambles 
I  put  together  in  my  last  and  compare  both  with  this 
which  I  now  cite  :  — 

<'  Whereas  the  improvement  of  knowledge,  the  progress 
of  civilisation,  the  public  Aveal  of  the  communit}-,  and 
the  advancement  of  human  happiness,  greatly  depend  on 
the  efforts  of  learned  and  ingenious  persons  in  the  various 
arts  and  sciences :  As  the  principal  encouragement  such 
persons  can  have  to  make  great  and  beneficial  exertions 
of  this  nature  must  depend  on  the  legal  security  of  the 
fruits  of  their  study  and  industry  to  themselves  ;  and,  as 
such  security  is  one  of  the  natural  rights  of  all  men, 
there  being  no  property  more  peculiarly  a  man^s  own 
than  that  which  is  produced  by  the  labour  of  his  mind^ 
therefore  to  encourage  learned  and  ingenious  persons  to 
write  useful  books  for  the  benefit  of  mankind,  Be  it  en- 
acted," &c.     1  Mass.  Laws,  94,  ed.  1801 

The  other  States  followed  this  example  and  these  sen- 
timents ;  all  avoid  the  word  "  vest "  and  employ  the 
word  "  secure,"  and  all,  or  most  of  them,  recognise  the 
security  of  an  author's  property  as  "a  right  perfectly 
agreeable  to  the  principles  of  natural  justice  and  equity." 
See  the  excellent  work  on  copyright  of  G.  T.  Curtis,  an 
American  jurist,  p.  77. 

The  very  idea  of  "  monopoly  "  is  absent  from  all  these 
Acts ;  they  emanated  from  men,  who  were  lovers  of  lib- 
erty and  constitutional  rights,  and  had  shown  how  well 
they  could  fight  for  them :  whereas  canting  Camden  il- 
lustrated his  peculiar  views  of  the  common  law  by  not 
uttering  one  word  of  objection  in  the  House  of  Lords  to 
a  parliamentary  tax  upon  the  Colonies  for  the  benefit  of 
England ;  an  usurpation  it  would  be  as  difficult  to  find 
in  the  law  of  England  as  it  is  easy  to  find  copyright 
there. 


RIGHTS    AND    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  263 

From  these  sound  principles  of  justice  and  national 
policy  the  Legislature  of  the  United  States  has  fallen 
away,  and  listened  this  many  years  to  cant,  and  the 
short-sighted  greed  of  a  Venetian  oligarchy  sticking  like 
a  fungus  on  the  fair  trunk  of  the  Kepublican  tree.  But 
I  dare  say  not  one  member  of  Congress  knows  how  un- 
just and  unwise  is  the  present  state  of  statute  law,  as 
regards  British  and  American  authors.  It  is  not  only 
injustice  we  writhe  under,  but  bitter,  and  biting,  and  in- 
consistent partiality. 

Even  little  la^v^^ers,  though  their  mental  vision  is  too 
weak  to  see  the  essential  difference  between  patent-right 
and  copyright,  have  a  sort  of  confused  notion  that  copy- 
right is  a  trifle  more  sacred,  and  consistent  with  common 
law,  than  the  various  and  distinct  monopolies,  just  and 
unjust,  which  the  narrow  vocabulary  of  law  huddles  to- 
gether under  the  term  patent-right.  Yet  in  this  great 
and  enlightened  Eepublic,  international  copyright  and 
stage-right,  by  statute,  are  refused,  and  international 
patent-right  established. 

The  distinction  is  a  masterpiece  of  partiality,  immo- 
rality, and  inconsistency.  The  patent  on  new  substances 
discovered  or  imported  is  a  monstrous,  unconstitutional 
restraint  of  just  liberty,  and  will  be  abolished  whenever 
Legislature  rises  to  a  science.  The  patent  of  invention 
is  salutary.  It  is  the  exclusive  right  to  carry  out  and 
embody,  by  skilled  labour,  one  or  two  bare  and  fleshless 
ideas,  but  sometimes  of  prodigious  value  to  the  world : 
oftener,  of  course,  not  worth  a  button. 

The  patent  of  invention  is  a  mild  monopoly  in  a  spe- 
cies or  sub-species  of  ideas ;  but  copyright  in  bare  ideas 
does  not  exist.  Copyright  cannot  arise  until  the  bare 
and  fleshless  ideas  of  the  author,  infinitely  more  numer- 


264  READIANA. 

ous  than  a  patentee's,  have  been  united  with  matter,  and 
wrought  out  by  the  mental  and  jiliysical  labour  of  the 
writer,  which  jyhijsical  labour  accelerates  the  death  of 
his  body.  An  author's  physical  posture,  when  at  work, 
is  the  same  as  a  printing  compositor's  physical  posture 
—  see  the  famous  portrait  of  Dickens  at  work  —  and  his 
physical  labour  is  similar,  and  equally  bad  for  the  body, 
whereas  thinking  and  sweating  at  the  same  time  are 
healthy.  The  author  does  the  intellectual  and  physical 
labour  not  only  of  the  architect  or  the  mechanical 
inventor,  but  also  of  the  builder  or  of  the  skilled  con- 
structor, and  his  written  manuscript  corresponds  not 
with  the  sjjecification  of  a  pate7it,  or  the  plan  of  a  house, 
but  with  the  wrought  article,  and  the  built  house.  The 
printing  press  adds  nothing  to  the  author's  production ; 
it  does  not  even  alter  the  vehicles,  but  only  improves 
them,  and  that  only  of  late  years,  since  running  hand. 
The  modern  manuscript  is  paper  with  a  certain  labori- 
ous sequence  of  words  marked  on  it  in  ink  by  skilled 
labour ;  the  book  is  paper  with  the  same  laborious  se- 
quence of  words  marked  on  it  by  mere  mechanical  labour 
taking  little  time.  Let  A  read  from  the  manuscript  and 
B  from  the  book,  and  both  readers  deliver  the  same 
complete  production,  corresponding  with  the  patented  or 
patentable  article,  not  with  the  bare  specification. 

This  object  of  property,  the  author's  material  web  of 
words,  has  not,  in  itself,  the  value  of  a  patentable  article. 
Its  value  lies  in  its  unique  power  of  self-reproduction  by 
means  of  the  actor  or  the  press.  Mechanical  articles  of 
very  moderate  value  are  more  valuable  per  se  than  any 
author's  MS.,  but  mechanical  articles  have  no  power  of 
self-reproduction.  There  is  no  magic  machine  with 
which  three  quiet  idiots,  without  an  atom  of  constructive 


RIGHTS   AND    WEONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  265 

skill,  can  reproduce  steam-engines,  power  presses,  and 
sewing  machines.  But  three  quiet  idiots,  with  the  print- 
ing press,  can,  without  one  grain  of  the  original  author's 
peculiar  art,  skill,  and  labour,  reproduce  exactly  his 
whole  composition,  and  can  rob  him  of  the  entire  value 
in  his  object  of  property,  because,  without  the  sole  right 
of  printing,  his  object  of  property  has  not  the  value  of 
a  deal  shaving,  whereas  an  article  that  might  be  patented, 
but  is  not,  is  worth  ninety-two  per  cent,  of  the  same  arti- 
cle patented. 

Thus  the  American  Legislature  outlaws  the  complete, 
executed,  wrought  out  property  of  a  Briton,  and  protects 
his  inchoate  n^onopoly  or  exclusive  right  to  go  and  work 
upon  certain  bare  intellectual  ideas,  provided  they  are 
hare  ideas  applicable  to  mechanics. 

Take  this  specification  to  a  Patent  Office.  ^^I  have 
invented  a  young  man  and  two  sisters  in  love  with  him. 
They  were  amiable  till  he  came,  but  now  they  undermine 
each  other  to  get  the  young  man ;  and  they  reveal  such 
faults  that  he  marries  an  artful  jade  who  praised  every- 
body." 

You  apply  for  a  patent  or  monopoly  of  these  bare 
ideas,  this  little  sub-species  of  story.  You  are  refused, 
not  because  there  is  no  invention  in  the  thing  —  there  is 
mighty  little,  but  there  is  as  much  as  in  nine  patents  out 
of  ten  :  where  is  the  author  who  could  not  sit  on  a  sofa 
and  speak  Patents  ?  But  because  tho  common  law, 
whose  creature  copyright  is,  protects  in  an  author,  not 
invention,  but  constructive  labour  ;  gives  him  no  prop- 
erty in  bare  ideas,  but  only  in  a  laboured  sequence  of 
written  words  which  convey  ideas,  but  are  produced 
by  physical  and  intellectual  labour  mixed,  and  are  dis- 
tinctly material  in  nature  and  character,  though  they 
carry  an  intellectual  force  and  value. 


266  READIANA. 

The  piratical  imitation  of  a  patented  sewing  machine 
is  only  imitation  by  skilled  workmen  of  the  patentee's 
ideas ;  it  is  not  identical  reproduction  of  his  wrought-ont 
and  embodied  ideas,  by  mere  mechanics  working  a  steal- 
ing machine.  To  pirate  a  patented  article  you  must 
employ  the  same  kind  of  constructive  skill  the  patentee, 
or  his  paid  constructors  employ,  and  then  you  only 
mimic  ;  but  to  pirate  an  author  and  steal  his  identical 
work,  none  of  an  author's  skill  or  labour  is  required. 
All  the  brains  required  to  reproduce  mechanically  that 
sequence  of  words,  which  is  an  author's  object  of  prop- 
erty, are  furnished  to  this  day  by  John  of  Gutenburg, 
who  invented  the  machine,  by  which  an  author  lives  or 
dies,  as  law  protects  him,  or  lets  thieves  rob  him  with  a 
stealing  instrument  worked  by  mere  mechanics. 

So  then  the  American  Legislature  protects  a  foreign- 
er's monopoly,  and  steals  a  foreigner's  property.  The 
monopoly  this  great  Republic  protects  is  the  creature  of 
the  British  Crown,  to  which  the  great  Republic  owes 
nothing,  and  the  property  it  outlaws  is  a  property  that 
arose  in  the  breast  and  brain  and  conscience  of  our 
common  ancestors.  They,  whose  wisdom  and  justice 
founded  this  property  in  England,  were  just  as  much 
Americans  as  English,  and  we  all  sprang  from  those 
brave,  just,  and  honest  men. 

To  swindle  poor,  weak,  deserving,  private  men  of  a 
kindred  nation  out  of  this  sacred  property,  which  our 
common  ancestors  created  and  venerated  and  defended 
against  the  Crown  in  "  Roper  v.  Streater,"  as  the  United 
States  defended  their  rights  against  a  Parliament  usurp- 
ing Russian  prerogatives,  a  property  which  Milton  re- 
vered, whose  heart  was  with  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and 
all   just   liberty  whatever;    and   to   protect   a  Briton's 


RIGHTS   A^T3   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  267 

monopoly,  the  mere  creature  of  arbitrary  prerogative  — 
this  double  iniquity,  I  say,  is  legislation  that  disgraces 
the  name  of  legislation  and  national  sentiment ;  it  is 
a  prodigy  of  injustice,  partiality,  and  inconsistency. 
What  ?  I  spend  two  thousand  hours'  labour  on  a  com- 
position ;  to  be  sold  it  must  be  wedded  to  vehicles,  paper, 
type,  binding,  and  it  must  be  advertised.  I  pay  the 
paper-makers,  the  printers,  the  binders.  I  pay  the  ad- 
vertisements :  the  retail  trader  takes  twenty-five  per 
cent,  of  my  gross  receipts  ;  the  publisher  justly  shares 
my  profits.  The  book  succeeds.  I  cross  the  water  with 
it,  and  its  reputation  earned  by  my  labour,  and  my 
advertisements  ;  I  ask  a  trifling  share  of  the  profits  from 
an  American  publisher,  who  profits  by  me  as  much  as 
ever  my  British  publisher  did.  "You!"  says  he,  "you 
are  nobody  in  this  business.  I  shall  pay  for  the  vehicles, 
but  not  for  the  production  that  sells  the  vehicles.  I 
shall  pay  the  paper-makers,  and  also  the  printers  and 
binders,  Britons  or  not.  But  I  shall  take  your  labour 
gratis,  on  the  pretence  that  you  are  a  Briton."  The 
American  public  pays  a  dollar  for  the  book ;  fiftv-five 
cents  of  the  value  is  contributed  bv  the  English  author. 
The  various  labourers,  who  are  all  paid,  make  up  the 
forty-five  cents  amongst  them.  He  who  alone  con- 
tributes fifty-five  per  cent,  is  the  one  picked  out  of  half- 
a-dozen  workmen  concerned  to  be  swindled  out  of  every 
cent,  and  the  Legislature  never  even  suspects  that  by  so 
doing  it  disgraces  legislature  and  mankind.  An  Eng- 
lishman writes  a  play,  mixing  labour  with  invention. 
The  stage  carpenter  contributes  a  petty  mechanical  idea 
suggested  by  the  scene;  he  uses  wavy  glass  at  an  angle 
under  limelight  to  represent  the  water.  The  play  crosses 
the  Atlantic;  anyljody  steals  it  for  all  the  Legislature 


268  READIANA. 

cares,  but,  if  they  touch  my  carpenter's  demi-semi- 
invcntion,  his  bare  fleshless  intellectual  idea  of  placing 
an  old  substance,  glass,  at  an  angle  under  another  old 
thing,  limelight  —  "  Halte  la  —  ne  touchez  pas  a  la 
Reine !  "  The  creature  of  Crown  Prerogative  protects 
in  New  York  and  Boston  the  naked  half  idea  of  the 
British  carpenter.  No  American  glass  and  limelight 
honestly  bought  must  be  wedded  to  that  bare  idea ;  and 
the  idea  taken  gratis.  Only  the  property  can  be  stolen 
—  because  it  belongs  to  the  everlasting  victim  of  man's 
beastly  cruelty  and  injustice  :  the  dirty  little  British 
monopoly  is  secure.  The  British  actor  must  be  paid 
four  times  his  British  price  for  delivering  the  British 
author's  property  in  a  New  York  or  Boston  theatre ;  the 
fiddlers,  Britons  or  not,  for  fiddling  to  it;  the  door- 
keepers for  letting  in  the  public  to  see  it,  &c.  Only  the 
one  imperial  workman,  who  created  the  production,  and 
inspired  the  carpenter  with  his  lucrative  demi-semi-idea 
and  set  the  actors  acting,  and  the  fiddlers  fiddling,  and 
the  public  paying,  and  the  thief  of  a  manager  jingling 
another  man's  money,  is  singled  out  of  about  eighty 
people,  all  paid  out  of  his  one  skull,  to  be  swindled  of 
every  cent,  on  the  pretence  that  he  is  a  Briton;  but 
really  because  he  is  an  author. 

The  world  —  wicked  and  barbarous  as  it  is  —  affords 
no  parallel  to  this.  It  is  not  the  injustice  of  earth  ;  it 
is  the  injustice  of  hell. 

CHAELES   EEADE. 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  269 

TENTH   LETTER. 

Sir,  —  I  ask  leave  to  head  this  letter 

The  Five-fold  Iniquity. 

The  outlawry  of  British  authors  and  their  property  is 
a  small  portion  of  the  injustice.  The  British  Legisla- 
ture has  for  years  offered  the  right  hand  of  international 
justice;  it  is  therefore  the  American  Legislature  that 
robs  the  American  author  in  England.  That  is  No.  2. 
But  the  worst  is  behind.  The  United  States  are  a  stiff 
protectionist  nation.  The  American  chair-maker,  car- 
riage-maker, horse-breeder,  and  all  producers  whatever 
are  secured  by  heavy  imposts  against  fair  competition 
with  foreigners.  Also  the  American  publisher,  and  the 
American  stationer.  The  tariff  taxes  paper,  I  think, 
and  is  severe  on  English  books.  But  turn  to  the  Ameri- 
can author.  —  He  cannot  write  a  good  work  by  machin- 
ery ;  like  the  English  author,  he  can  only  produce  it  by 
labour,  intellectual  and  physical,  of  a  nature  proved  to 
shorten  life  more  or  less.  While  he  is  writing  it,  debt 
must  accumulate.  When  written,  how  is  this  laborious 
producer  in  a  protectionist  nation  protected  ?  Are  im- 
ported compositions  paid  for  like  any  other  import,  and 
also  taxed  at  the  ports  to  protect  the  native  producer  ? 
On  the  contrary,  the  foreign  literary  composition  is  the 
one  thing  not  taxed  at  the  ports,  and  also  the  one  thing 
stolen.  And  the  State,  which  dances  this  double  shuffle 
on  the  author's  despised  body  at  home,  robs  him  of  his 
property  abroad. 

The  enormity  escapes  the  judgment  of  the  American 
public  in  a  curious  way,  which  I  recommend  to  the  notice 


270  READIANA. 

of  metaphysicians.  It  seems  that  men  can  judge  things 
only  by  measurement  with  similar  things.  But  the  world 
offers  no  parallel  to  this  compound  iniquity,  and  so,  com- 
parison being  impossible,  the  unique  villainy  passes  for 
no  villainy. 

I  will  try  and  remove  that  illusion.  Let  us  suppose  a 
fast-trotting  breed  of  horses,  valueless  in  trade  without 
a  car  and  harness.  You  must  yoke  the  horse  to  car  and 
harness,  and  then  they  run  together  and  are  valuable ; 
but  they  don't  melt  together,  because  they  are  heteroge- 
neous properties ;  and  so  are  the  author's  composition 
and  its  vehicles  heterogeneous  properties ;  you  may  mix 
the  two,  but  you  cannot  confound  them  as  you  can  flour 
and  mustard,  by  mixing. 

An  American  citizen  breeds  a  horse,  at  considerable 
expense,  for  the  dealers.  They  supply  the  cart  and  har- 
ness, and  have  virtually  a  monopoly  in  the  trade. 

Carts  and  harness,  to  be  imported,  must  be  bought  and 
taxed. 

But  the  Legislature  permits  the  dealer,  and  trade  mo- 
nopolist to  steal  foreign  horses,  and  also  import  them 
untaxed. 

How  can  the  American  breeder  compete  with  this 
double  iniquity  ? 

The  analogy  is  strict.  This  is  the  social,  political,  and 
moral  position  of  the  American  author,  in  a  protectionist 
nation,  and  he  owes  it  to  his  own  Legislature.  Our  Le- 
gislature offers  to  treat  him  as  a  man,  not  a  beast.  Now 
does  this  poor  devil  pay  the  national  taxes  ?  He  does. 
What  for  ?  The  State  has  no  claim  on  him.  The  State 
has  outlawed  him ;  has  disowned  his  citizenship,  and 
even  his  humanity.  Is  he  expected  not  to  take  any  prop- 
erty he  can  lay  his  hand  on  ?     Stuff  and  nonsense !     Law 


RIGHTS   A^^   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  271 

is  only  a  mutual  compact  between  Tnan  and  man.  In  the 
American  author's  case,  the  Republic,  through  its  repre- 
sentatives, has  dissolved  that  mutual  compact,  and  broken 
the  public  faith  with  the  individual  subject.  The  man 
is  now  reduced  to  a  state  of  nature,  and  may  take  any- 
thing he  can  lay  his  hands  on.  There  is  not  a  casuist, 
alive  or  dead,  who  will  deny  this.  Earth  offers  no  par- 
allel to  this  quintuple  iniquity.  1.  British  monopoly  re- 
spected. 2.  British  property  stolen.  3.  American  author 
struck  out  of  the  national  system,  Protection.  4.  Crushed 
under  the  competition  of  foreign  stolen  goods.  5.  Eobbed 
of  his  natural  property,  and  his  rights  of  man,  in  England. 

A  property  founded,  as  the  sages  of  Massachusetts 
justly  say,  on  the  natural  rights  of  man  to  the  fruits  of 
his  labour,  cannot  be  property  in  one  country  and  no 
property  in  another.  It  can  be  protected  in  one  country 
and  stolen  in  another ;  but  it  is  just  as  much  property  in 
the  country  where  it  is  stolen,  as  in  the  country  where 
it  is  protected.  Geographical  probity  —  local  morality 
—  Thou  shalt  not  steal  —  except  from  a  British  author 
out  of  bounds  —  Do  unto  your  neighbour  as  you  would 
he  should  do  to  you  —  unless  he  is  a  British  author  out 
of  bounds  —  all  these  are  vain  endeavours  to  pass  geo- 
graphical amendments  upon  God's  laws,  and  on  the  old 
common  law,  and  on  the  great  ungeographical  conscience 
of  civilised  mankind.  The  honest  man  spurns  these  pro- 
vincial frauds,  plain  relics  of  the  savage ;  and  the  pirate 
takes  them,  with  a  sneer,  as  stepping-stones  to  the  thing 
withheld. 

In  proof  of  this  I  give  a  few  indirect  consequences  of 
the  five-fold  iniquity. 

1.  Mutilation  and  forgery. — The  same  people  that 
steal  a  foreign  author's  property  mutilate  it,  and  forge 


272  READIANA. 

his  name  to  what  he  never  wrote:  and  they  cannot  be 
hindered,  except  by*international  copyright.  A.  —  Tom 
Taylor  and  Charles  Reade  write  a  comedy  called  "  The 
King's  Eival."  Here  Nell  Gwynne,  a  frail  woman  with 
a  good  heart,  plays  a  respectable  part,  because  her  faults 
are  not  paraded,  and  her  good  qualities  appear  in  action. 
The  comedy  concludes  in  the  King's  closet ;  he  forgives 
his  cousin,  the  Duke  of  Eichmond,  and  Frances  Stuart ; 
the  centre  doors  are  thrown  open,  the  Queen  and  Court 
appear,  and  the  King  introduces  the  Duke  and  Duchess 
as  a  newly  married  couple,  and  the  curtain  falls,  because 
the  suspense  has  ceased ;  and  that  is  a  good  rule.  The 
character  of  Nell  Gwynne  was  admirably  played,  and  we 
arranged  for  the  actress  (Mrs.  Seymour)  to  show  one 
hand,  and  a  frolic  face  at  a  side  curtain,  unseen,  of  course, 
by  the  Queen  and  the  Court,  who  occupy  the  whole 
background. 

Our  Transatlantic  thief  was  not  satisfied  with  this,  nor 
with  stealing  our  brains.  He  brings  Nell  Gwynne  out 
of  her  sly  corner  into  the  very  centre  of  the  stage,  and 
gives  her  a  dialogue  with  the  King,  during  which  the 
Queen  is  mute,  perhaps  with  astonishment.  The  twaddle 
of  the  speakers  ends  with  the  King  inviting  the  company 
to  adjourn  to  the  playhouse,  and  receive  another  lesson 
from  Mistress  Gwynne.  That  lady,  who  in  the  play  had 
shown  a  great  deal  less  vanity  than  characterises  actresses 
in  general,  now  replies  pedantically  for  the  first  time  :  — 

"It  is  our  desire,  your  Majesty,  while  we  amuse,  to  improve 
the  mind.     Our  aim  is  — 

*♦  By  nature's  study  to  portray  most  clear 
From  Beaumont,  Fletcher,  Jonson,  immortal  Shakespeare, 
How  kings  and  princes  by  our  mimic  art 
Yield  their  sway  and  applaud  the  actor's  part. 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  273 

The  Bard  of  Avon  in  that  prolific  age 
Traced  thoughts  upon  the  enduring' page." 

Is  it  possible  ? 

"  Precepts  in  that  powerful  work  we  find 

To  improve  the  morals  and  instruct  the  mind. 
•    There  he  holds,  as  'twere,  a  mirror  up  to  Nature, 
Shows  Scorn  her  own  image,  Virtue  her  own  feature. 
To-night,  king,  queen,  lords,  and  ladies  act  their  part, 
Each  prompted  by  the  workings  of  the  heart. 
And  Nelly  hopes  they  will  not  lose  their  cause  — 
Nor  will  they  —  if  favoured  —  by  your  applause." 

This  is  how  dunces  and  thieves  improve  writers.  Though 
she  is  the  King's  mistress,  this  unblushing  hussy  stands 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  stage,  with  the  King  between 
her  and  his  wife,  the  Queen  of  England ;  and  though  she 
is  an  actress  who  had  delivered  the  lines  of  Shakespeare, 
Fletcher,  and  other  melodious  poets,  she  utters  verses 
that  halt  and  waddle,  but  do  not  scan.  The  five-foot 
line  is  attempted,  but  there  are  four-foot  lines  and  six- 
foot  lines,  and  lines  unscannable.  Now  there  is  no  surer 
sign  of  an  uneducated  man  than  not  knowing  how  to  scan 
verses.  We  detect  the  uneducated  actor  in  a  moment 
by  this.  Our  self-imposed  collaborateur  forges  the  name 
of  a  Cambridge  scholar  and  an  Oxford  scholar  to  a  gross 
and  stupid  indelicacy,  showing  the  absence  both  of  sense 
and  right  feeling,  and  also  to  verses  that  do  not  scan. 
He  lowers  us,  as  writers  and  men,  in  the  United  States, 
which  is  a  very  educated  country  with  universities  in  it ; 
and,  as  these  piratical  books  are  always  sent  into  Eng- 
land, in  spite  of  our  teeth,  he  enables  the  home  pirate  to 
swindle  us  out  of  our  property,  and  also  out  of  our  credit 
'  as  artists,  scholars,  and  gentlemen,  at  home.  The  hum- 
bugs who,  following  Yates  and  Camden,  say  an  author 


274  READIANA. 

should  write  only  for  fame,  will  do  well  to  observe  that, 
where  vei'  our  property  is  outlawed,  our  reputation  and 
credit  as  artists  are  sure  to  be  filched  away  as  well.  The 
Publishers'  Circular,  a  publication  singularly  gentle  and 
moderate,  has  had  to  remonstrate  more  than  once  on  the 
double  villainy  of  taking  an  historical  or  scientific  treat- 
ise, using  the  British  author's  learning,  so  far  as  it  suited, 
and  then  falsifying  his  conclusions  with  a  little  new  mat- 
ter, and  still  forging  his  nartie  to  the  tuhole  for  trade 
intrposes.  If  this  is  not  villainy,  set  open  the  gates  of 
Newgate  and  Sing-Sing,  for  no  greater  rogues  than  these 
are  in  any  convict  prison. 

B.  —  Fitzball,  an  English  playwright,  dramatised  a 
novel  of  Cooper's.  Fitzball  coolly  reversed  the  senti- 
ments, and  so,  without  a  grain  of  invention,  turned  the 
American  inventor's  genius  inside  out,  and  made  him 
write  the  Briton  up  and  the  colonist  doAvn.  Such  vil- 
lainy, in  time  of  war,  would  make  a  soldier  blush.  What 
is  it  in  time  of  peace  ?  The  British  Legislature  is  will- 
ing to  put  this  out  of  any  Fitzball's  power. 

2.  Recoil  of  Piracy.  —  I  have  the  provincial  right  in  a 
comedy,  "  Masks  and  Faces."  Many  years  ago  I  let  the 
book  run  out  of  print,  because  I  found  it  facilitated 
piratical  representation.  Instantly  piratical  copies,  pub- 
lished in  New  York,  were  imported ;  and,  on  the  most 
moderate  calculation,  the  American  Legislature  has  en- 
abled British  managers,  actors,  and  actresses  to  swindle 
me,  in  my  own  country,  out  of  eight  hundred  pounds  in 
the  last  fourteen  years  on  this  single  property.  I  have 
stopped  the  piratical  version  by  injunction.  But  I  can 
only  stop  its  sale  in  shops.  It  penetrates  into  theatres 
like  a  weasel  or  a  skunk ;  and  no  protection  short  of  in- 
ternational copyright  and  stage-right  is  any  protection. 


EIGHTS   AND    WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  275 

America  saps  Britisli  morality  by  example ;  British  ac- 
tresses are  taught,  by  Congress,  to  pillage  me  in  the 
States.  They  come  over  here  and  continue  the  habit 
the  American  Legislature  has  taught  them.  At  this  very 
moment  I  have  to  sue  a  Glasgow  manager,  because  an 
English  actress  brought  over  a  piratical  American  book 
of  "Masks  and  Faces"  in  spite  of  the  injunction,  and 
they  played  it  in  Glasgow ;  and  I  can  see  the  lady  thinks 
it  hard,  since  she  had  a  right  to  pillage  her  countryman 
in  the  States,  that  she  should  not  be  allowed  to  pillage 
him  also  in  his  own  country.  That  is  how  all  local 
amendments  on  the  eighth  commandment  operate.  They 
make  the  whole  eighth  commandment  seem  unreasonable 
and  inconsistent. 

3.  A  Dublin  editor  pirated  my  story,  "  It  is  Never 
too  Late  to  !Mend,"  under  the  title  of  "  Susan  Merton  : 
a  Tale  of  the  Heart."  This  alarmed  me  greatly;  it 
threatened  a  new  vein  of  fraud  on  copyrights.  I  moved 
the  Irish  Court  of  Chancery  at  once.  The  offender 
pleaded  ignorance,  and  produced,  to  my  great  surprise, 
an  American  paper,  in  which  the  story  was  actually 
published  under  the  title  "  Susan  Merton :  a  Tale  of  the 
Heart "  —  and  the  English  author's  name  suppressed. 
So  careful  of  an  author's  fame,  my  Lord  Camden,  are 
those  superior  spirits  who  set  him  an  example  of  nobil- 
ity by  despising  his  property.  "  It  is  Never  too  Late  to 
Mend "  is  an  ideaed  title.  "  Susan  Merton  "  is  an  im- 
ideaed  title.  I  never  saw  an  American  idiot  yet,  so  I  ap- 
prehend this  ingenious  customer  altered  the  title  for  the 
worse,  and  suppressed  my  name,  in  order  to  defraud  his 
own  countrymen,  by  passing  the  thing  off  as  a  novelty 
in  some  sequestered  nook  of  the  Union.  Well,  this  lie, 
on  the  top  of  the  piracy,  jeopardized  my  property  in 


270  rp:adiana. 

England,  and  cost  me  a  sum  of  money ;  for  the  defendant 
could  not  pay  the  costs.  The  piratical  proprietor  of 
two  Irish  newspapers  paid  £1  per  week  for  a  little 
wliile,  and  then  disappeared.  He  went  to  the  States  no 
doubt.     I  hope  he  did  ;  for  there  he'll  meet  his  match. 

4.  "  Foul  Play,"  a  drama,  was  produced  in  New 
York.  I  was  on  shares  with  Mr.  Boucicault.  In  course 
of  the  representation  there  was  a  dispute,  the  grounds 
of  which,  as  reported,  I  could  not  understand.  How- 
ever, the  sheriff  came  on  the  stage  with  his  man.  There 
was  resistance.  Shots  were  fired,  and  two  humble  per- 
sons employed  in  the  theatre,  an  old  man  an  a  boy,  were 
wounded.  I  felt  very  sorry  for  these  poor  fellows,  who 
had  no  interest  in  the  quarrel.  Also  I  felt  half  guilty, 
since  it  happened  in  connection  with  that  particular 
play.  I  sent  out  £10  for  them,  to  my  friends  Messrs. 
Harper :  they  were  good  enough  to  take  charge  of  the 
matter  and  saw  the  sufferers  got  it.  Now  I  don't  set 
up  for  a  sweet,  benevolent  soul ;  I  intended  this  as  a 
fair  percentage  to  American  sufferers,  to  be  paid  out  of 
American  profits.  But  the  Yankee  in  charge  of  the 
receipts  deranged  my  arithmetic.  He  levanted  with  the 
receipts,  and  my  whole  commercial  transaction  is  repre- 
sented in  my  books  by  a  payment  of  that  small,  but 
solid  percentage  upon  —  air. 

The  American  saw  the  Britisher  recognise  our  com- 
mon humanity  and  not  draw  geographical  distinctions ; 
but  he  despised  my  example :  for  why,  he  had  the  ex- 
ample of  his  Legislature,  which  says  "  When  you  catch 
a  British  author  here,  show  your  hospitality.  Swindle 
him  up  hill  and  down  dale  —  and  then  go  to  church  and 
*  pray  '  to  our  common  Father." 

An  actress  calls  on  me  from  Illinois,  tall,  dark,  grace- 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  277 

ful,  handsome,  and  talks  well,  as  all  American  ladies  do. 
She  wants  a  new  part.  Says  she  has  been  to  another 
author,  and  he  demanded  the  price  down,  because  she 
was  an  American.  Of  course  I  put  on  a  face  of  wonder 
at  that  other  author  ;  so  inseparable  is  politeness  from 
insincerity.  I  let  her  have  ''  Philippa  "  and  "  The  Wan- 
dering Heir  "  in  the  States  for  ten  dollars  per  night, 
which  is  a  mere  nominal  price.  Subsequently  two 
English  actresses  of  the  very  highest  merit  and  popu- 
larity asked  leave  to  play  the  piece  in  the  United 
States.  But  the  Britisher  stood  loyal  to  his  Illinois 
girl.  Well,  she  sent  me  a  very  small  sum  from  Cali- 
fornia. She  then  went  to  Australia,  played  the  piece 
repeatedly ;  wrote  to  me  eight  months  ago,  telling  me 
she  only  withheld  payments  because  she  was  coming  to 
England ;  and  never  came  to  England,  nor  made  me  any 
remittance.  The  part  is  invaluable  to  an  actress.  It 
has  been  played  by  three  actresses  in  England,  and  in 
each  case  has  proved  valuable  to  the  performer.  In  the 
United  States  I  am  done  out  of  it  as  property,  and 
done  out  of  all  returns,  because  I  trusted  an  American 
woman  in  a  matter  of  literary  property. 

5.  My  first  letter  announced  that  I  considered  the 
American  author  the  head  victim,  and  I  even  suggested 
how  difficult  it  must  be  for  a  novice,  even  if  a  man  of 
genius,  to  get  before  the  public  at  all.  I  have  now 
advices  from  young  American  authors  sending  me  de- 
tails. They  say  that  it  is  very  hard  to  get  MSS.  read ; 
that,  when  they  bring  a  picture  of  American  life,  it  is 
slighted,  and  they  are  advised  to  imitate  some  British 
writer  or  other ;  and  that,  in  fact,  servile  imitation  of 
British  styles  is  a  young  writer's  best  chance.  But 
they  tell  me  something  I  did  not  divine  —  that  the  pub- 


278  READIANA. 

lishers  keep  copying  machines,  and  the  rejected  manu- 
script often  bears  the  marks  of  the  machine  :  and  the 
subject-matter  is,  in  due  course,  piratically  used. 

Look  this  cruel  thing  all  round.  It  becomes  the  old 
to  feel  for  the  young ;  let  me  trace  that  poor  young 
author's  heart.  He  is  young,  and  the  young  are  san- 
guine :  he  is  young,  and  the  young  are  slow  to  suspect 
cold-blooded  villainy  and  greed  in  men  that  are  rich,  and 
need  not  cheat  to  live,  and  live  in  luxury.  He  takes 
his  MSS.  in  good  faith  to  a  respectable  man.  He  is 
told  that  it  shall  be  read.  There  are  delays.  The  poor 
young  man,  or  young  woman,  is  hot  and  cold  by  turns  ; 
but  does  not  like  to  show  too  much  impatience.  How- 
ever, in  time,  he  begins  to  fear  he  is  befooled.  He  calls, 
and  will  have  an  answer  one  way  or  other.  Then  a 
further  short  delay  is  required  to  re-peruse,  or  to  con- 
sider. That  delay  is  really  wanted  to  copy  the  MSS. 
by  a  machine.  The  manuscript  is  returned  with  a  com- 
pliment ;  but  the  author  is  told  he  is  not  yet  quite  ripe 
for  publication  :  he  is  paternally  advised  to  study  certain 
models  (British)  and  encouraged  to  bring  another  MS. 
improved  by  these  counsels.  Ods  Nestor !  it  reads  like 
criticism,  and  paternal  advice.  The  novice  yields  his 
own  judgment ;  sighs  many  times  if  he  is  a  male,  if 
female  has  a  little  gentle  cry  that  the  swine  earth  is 
tenanted  by  are  not  asked  to  pity  nor  even  comprehend ; 
and  the  confiding  American  youth,  thinking  grey  hairs 
and  grave  advice  must  be  trustworthy,  sets  to  work  to 
discover  the  practical  merit  that  must  lie  somewhere  or 
other  at  the  bottom  of  British  mediocrity  and  "  decent 
debility  ;  "  he  never  suspects  that  the  sole  charm  of 
these  mediocre  models  lies  not  in  the  British  platitudes 
and  rigmarole,  but  in  the  Latin  word  gratis.      While 


EIGHTS   AND   WEONGS    OF   AUTHOES.  279 

thus  employed  he  sees,  one  fine  day,  some  sketches  of 
life  in  California,  Colorado,  or  what  not,  every  fact  and 
idea  of  which  has  been  stolen  from  his  rejected  MS., 
and  diverted  from  its  form,  and  reworded,  and  printed ; 
while  he,  the  native  of  a  mighty  continent,  has  been 
sent  away,  for  mundane  instruction,  to  the  inhabitants 
of  a  peninsula  on  the  north  coast  of  France.  The  poor 
novice  had  contributed  a  real,  though  crudish,  novelty 
to  literature,  as  any  Aytierican  can  by  opening  his  eyes 
in  earnest,  and  writing  all  he  sees.  It  was  rejected  for 
reasons  that  sounded  well,  but  were  all  trade  pretexts 
stereotyped  these  many  years,  though  new  to  each  novice 
in  his  turn ;  and  now  the  truth  comes  out ;  it  was  not 
worth  buying  cheap  ;  but  it  was  ivell  ivorth  stealing  in 
a  nation  where  the  Legislature  plays  the  part  of  Satan 
and  teaches  men  the  habit  of  stealing  from  authors,  a 
a  habit  which,  once  acquired,  is  never  dropped  nor 
restrained  within  any  fixed  limits. 

What  must  be  the  feelings  of  the  poor  young  man,  or 
woman,  so  bubbled,  so  swindled,  and  so  basely  robbed, 
because  he  trusted  a  trader  well  to  do,  and  did  not  take 
him  for  a  ticket-of-leave  man  turned  out  of  Sing-Sing 
into  a  store  ?  And  now  go  behind  the  swindle,  and  see 
how  the  geographical  amendment  of  the  eighth  com- 
mandment, and  the  local  variation  of  the  golden  rule 
prepares  Dives  for  heaven  in  spite  of  parables. 

"  Rob  the  British  author  of  his  composition,  by  ma- 
chinery," says  Congress;  "We  will  stop  his  volumes  at 
our  ports  :  but  we  will  connive  at  one  volume  passing, 
for  the  use  of  theft,  for  theft  is  all  sanctifying  ;  and 
you  have  but  to  take  this  one  volume  and  wed  his  stolen 
composition  to  bought  vehicles,  for  mind  you  must  only 
swindle   the   British  author  ;  you  must  not  swindle  a 


280  READLAJ^A. 

Briton  unless  he  is  an  author,  nor  an  author  unless  he 
is  a  Briton.  As  for  God  Almighty,  we  have  a  great 
respect  for  him  —  in  the  proper  place,  and  that  is 
church ;  but  out  of  church  he  has  not  looked  into  these 
little  matters  so  closely  as  ive  have.  He  is  addicted  to 
general  rules  ;  and  local  distinctions  have  escaped  him. 
We  are  more  discriminating." 

But  observe  the  result.  The  publisher  goes  on ; 
"  Excelsior  "  is  his  motto.  Taught  to  pillage  the  British 
author  by  a  miraculously  clever  machine,  the  press,  he 
invents  another  machine  and  pillages  the  native  author. 
That  machine  is  also  a  kind  of  press,  and  a  clever  one  ; 
for,  like  the  compositor  and  the  press  combined,  it 
separates  the  author's  words  from  his  paper,  and  steals 
them  with  a  view  to  wedding  the  cream  of  the  composi- 
tion gratis  to  other  pieces  of  paper  honestly  bought,  and 
selling  the  bour/ht  j^^^ipcj"  ^^^  the  stolen  ideas  of  the 
author  without  regard  to  his  nationality.  What  does 
this  poor  boy  gain  by  being  an  American  at  home  ? 
He  would  be  safer  out  of  bounds.  No  British  publisher 
would  so  abuse  his  confidence. 

Miss  Leclercq,  an  English  actress,  settled  in  the  United 
States,  purchased  not  long  ago  an  original  play  of  an 
American  author.  She  had  not  played  it  many  nights 
when  it  was  stolen  by  means  of  shorthand  writers,  and 
manuscripts  sold.  When  she  came  to  tour  the  Union 
with  her  new  American  piece  honestly  paid  for,  she 
found  it  was  valueless,  being  stolen  and  stale.  No  legis- 
lature can  place  unnatural  limits  to  fraud,  and  say  to 
theft,  "  Thus  far  shalt  thou  come  and  no  farther,  and 
here  shall  thy  dirty  waves  be  stayed." 

You  produce  a  drama  in  England ;  it  is  taken  down 
shorthand  for  the  United  States.     An  Englishman's  un- 


BIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  281 

puhlished  i^lojj  only  escapes  theft  or  colourable  piracy  in 
the  States  by  failure.     Merit  is  rewarded  by  pillage. 

But  I  hope  enough  has  been  sho^vn  to  prove  that  a 
legislature  and  its  judges  launch  its  people  into  illimit- 
able fraud,  when  they  pass  geographical  amendments 
upon  the  eighth  commandment  and  the  golden  rule,  and 
defile  the  common  law  with  pettifogging  distinctions,  the 
fruit  of  corruption  and  sophistry,  which  are  bad  in  law, 
grossly  immoral,  revolting  to  common  sense  and  the  con- 
science of  all  impartial  men,  and  contradicted  by  the 
usage  of  the  old  kingdom,  and  the  deeds,  and  the  words, 
of  our  common  ancestors. 

I  leave  that,  and  go  to  public  expediency.  I  shall 
prove  the  fivefold  iniquity  is  bad  public  policy ;  that  the 
American  reading  public  is  between  two  stools ;  robbed 
of  free  trade  in  books  to  swell  the  taxes,  and  robbed  of 
a  national  literature,  and  a  national  drama,  to  gratify 
one  of  the  smallest  cliques  in  the  nation ;  and  this  with- 
out either  the  nation  or  the  clique  gaining  or  saving  one 
single  cent.  So  that  the  thing  is  suicidal  kleptomania. 
And  this  I  say  is  one  of  the  bitterest  wrongs  of  authors 
—  that  sooner  than  not  pillage  them,  men  will  hurt 
themselves,  and  will  cut  their  own  throats,  to  wound  an 
author. 

CHAELES   READE. 


ELEVENTH   LETTER. 

THE    FOUR    FOGS. 

Sir,  —  Outside  these  letters  and  Mr.  Eeverdy  John- 
son's, international  copyright  and  stage-right  are  shrouded 
in  four  thick  fogs  —  legal,  moral,  verbal^  arithmetical. 


282  KEADTANA. 

I  read  what  is  -written  over  the  water,  and  grope  for 
an  idea.     In  vain :  it  is  all  verbal  and  arithmetical  fog. 

Verbal  fog  A.  —  They  can't  get  along  without  calling 
copyright  and  stage-right  monopolies ;  but  they  dare  not 
risk  £50  to  £150  upon  that  fallacy,  and  it  is  an  irrelev- 
ant fallacy  here,  since  international  patent-right  is  a 
monopoly  :  and  it  cannot  be  used  to  defend  the  American 
Legislature,  because  that  Legislature,  for  the  last  hun- 
dred years,  has  declared  copyright  to  be  property,  in  the 
laws  of  the  separate  States  and  the  laws  of  the  Kepublic, 
which  these  ignorant  citizens  had  better  begin  to  read. 

7?.  —  But  a  more  delicious  piece  of  verbal  fog  is  this 
—  they  say,  "  We  shall  not  give  up  free  trade  in  books 
to  please  the  Britishers."  Free  trade  in  books,  quotha ! 
why  it  does  not  exist  in  the  Union.  Free  trade  is  not 
freebooting.  Free  trade  means  buying  and  selling,  un- 
burdened by  imposts.  Now  there  is  thirty  per  cent, 
duty  on  foreign  books  at  the  American  ports,  and  free- 
booting  in  copyrights  can  never  supply  the  place  of  free 
trade,  for  copyright  is,  in  money,  only  seven  per  cent,  on 
retail  prices ;  and,  as  for  stage-right,  that  does  not  take 
a  cent  from  the  public.  The  prices  of  an  American 
theatre  are  just  the  same  when  a  play  is  paid  for  or 
stolen.  By  theft  of  a  foreigner's  stage-right  the  Ameri- 
can public  has  lost  a  national  drama ;  but  it  has  never 
gained  nor  saved  the  millionth  of  a  cent  since  the  coun- 
try was  colonized. 

International  stage-right  is  not  offered  by  those  who 
object  to  international  copyright.  These  arithmeticians 
draw  no  distinction.  Against  international  copyright 
and  stage-right  every  one  of  their  arguments  rests  on  the 
notion  that  the  main  expense  of  a  book,  or  of  a  seat  in  a 
theatre,  is  the  dramatist's  fee,  and  the  fee  which  copy- 


RIGHTS    AND    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS. 


283 


right  enables  a  book  author  to  extorc  directly  from  the 
publisher  and  indirectly  from  the  public  purchaser.     Oi 
course,  so  impudent  a  falsehood  is  never  stated.     But 
why  ?     Statement  is  not  the  weapon  of  a  liar,  nor  of  a 
self -deceiver.     Both  these  personages  convey  —  insinuate 
—  suggest— assume.     They  never    state.     Clear  state- 
ment and  detail  are  antidotes  to  the  subtle  poison  of 
va-ue  fallacies.     But  just  test  their  public  arguments, 
and  see  if  you  can  find  one  which  does  not  convey,  ma 
fog  of  words  and  figures,  that  the  author's  fee  is  the 
main  expense  of  a  book.     One  salaried  writer  not  only 
takes  this  ground,  but,  as  piracy  has  deprived  Americans 
of  their  own  judgment,  and  made  them  provincial  tog- 
echoes  of   British  muddleheads,  he  repeats,  with  true 
provincial  credulity,  Macaulay's  Fog  Epigram,  for  the 
instruction  of  his  countrymen.     This  done,  and  very  old 
London  fog  offered  to  New  York  for  modern  sunshine, 
he  infers  fairly  enough  —  because  the  inference  is  his 
own—th^t  if  domestic  copyright  is  so  heavy  a  tax  on 
the  public,  a  State  should  hesitate  to  extend  the  injustice 
to  foreign  nations.     Very  well,  young  gentleman  :  I  have 
no  quarrel  with  you.    If  Macaulay  is  right,  you  are  right. 
A  second-rate   rhetorician  may  be  a  babe   m   logic. 
Macaulay,  in  this  very  speech,  called  copyright  "a  mo- 
nopoly in  books,"    and  that  is   verbal  fog,   as  I  have 
shown.     The  only  monoply  in  books  nowadays  is  a  trade 
monopoly  held  by  publishers,  and  established  by  custom, 
not  law.     As  for  copyright,  it  is  a  singularly  open  prop- 
erty ;  why  every  man,  ivoman,  and  child,  m  the  Republic 
or  the  Empire,  who  can  fill  a  sheet  of  paper,  can  create, 
enjoy,  and  bequeath  a  copyright,  though  a  minor,  and  m 
case  of  co-heirs  it  is  distributable  like  other  personal 
property.     It  is  a  property  bowided  only  by  nature. 


284  READIANA. 

Fog  epigrams  are  for  our  amusement,  not  our  instruc- 
tion, and  Macaulay's  is  bottled  essence  of  arithmetical 
fog. 

"  Copyright,'^  says  he,  "  is  a  tax  on  readers  to  give  a 
bounty  to  authors." 

Now  we  will  let  in  a  gleam  of  arithmetical  sunshine 
on  this.  Writers  are  human  beings  with  stomachs.  They 
cannot  write  masterpieces,  a,s  Duns  Scotus  copied  the 
Bible,  during  the  throes  of  starvation.  They  must  be 
paid,  copyright  or  no  copyright;  and  an  author's  copy- 
right has  a  special  operation  on  a  inrate^  but  none  on 
the  reader.  Whether  an  author  is  paid  by  wages  or  by 
copyright,  his  remuneration  must  equally  fall  on  the 
public  purchaser.  Macaulay,  therefore,  has  taken  a  dis- 
tinction where  there  is  no  difference.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
muddlehead  is  always  doing  this.  It  is  his  great  intel- 
lectual excellence,  and  makes  him  the  ridicule  of  Europe. 

However,  the  great  vice  of  his  fog  epigram  is  "  fraud- 
ulent SELECTION."  It  picks  out  of  many  legitimate 
profits  a  single  one,  and  conceals  the  others.  If  just 
profits  on  human  labour,  &c.,  were  taxes,  tvhich  they  are 
not,  every  edition  of  a  work  would  represent  the  follow- 
ing taxes :  — 

1.  The  rag-picker's  profit.  2.  The  paper  merchant 
and  his  men.  3.  The  printer  and  his  men.  4.  The 
binder  and  his  men.  5.  The  publisher  and  his  staff. 
6.  The  author.  7.  The  retail  bookseller.  8.  The  adver- 
tising column.  These  are  all  taxes  and  bounties,  as  much 
as  is  the  author's  remuneration,  be  it  wages  or  copyright. 
To  be  sure,  if  any  one  of  these  characters  makes  an 
excessive  profit,  compared  with  the  others,  that  might 
be  called  a  bounty.  And  that  reminds  me  —  was  not 
Macaulay's  Fog  Epigram   preceded   by  another  which 


RIGHTS   AND    WEONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  285 

said,  "  Publishers  drink  their  wine  out  of  authors' 
skulls  "  ? 

Well,  if  anyone  gets  a  bounty,  or  excessive  profit,  it  is 
not  the  copyrighted  author,  and  I  don't  think  it  is  the 
publisher  —  epigram  apart.  The  public  result  of  these 
copyricjlit  transactions  is  this  :  — 

The  paper  merchants  are  rich. 

The  printers  are  rich. 

The  binders  are  well  to  do,  but  few. 

The  publishers  are  well  to  do.  But  I  deny  that  they 
owe  that  to  hooks. 

The  authors  are  the  poorest  creators  of  valuable  prop- 
erty on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

To  descend  to  details.  The  retail  dealer  gets  twenty- 
five  PER  CENT,  of  the  retail  price.  All  that  authors  of 
books,  as  a  class,  extort  by  means  of  copyright,  is  seven 
PER  cent,  on  the  retail  price,  which  is  10  per  cent,  on 
the  publisher's  net  returns.  So  much  for  the  compara- 
tive tax  the  reader  pays  to  the  author  and  seven  more 
traders.  Now  for  the  bounty.  This  can  only  be  ascer- 
tained by  measuring  the  work  done  against  the  remune- 
ration. Price  of  a  book  to  the  oppressed  reader  —  say 
1  dollar,  or  45.  Value  of  the  paper,  printing,  binding, 
advertisements,  45c.,  or  thereabouts ;  of  the  composition, 
55c.  Sole  creator  of  the  composition,  the  author ;  his 
remuneration  7  per  cent.,  his  share  of  the  production 
worth  55  per  cent.  Droll  bounty  this ! !  Por  passing 
the  book  through  his  hands,  often  on  sale  or  return,  the 
retailer  gets  25  per  cent.  What  the  other  traders  and 
^f orkmen  get,  I  cannot  say,  nor  is  it  necessary.  Enough 
that  they  are  all  richer  than  the  authors.  Now  compare 
the  arithmetical  fog  of  Macaulay,  and  his  trans-atlantic 
echo,  with  this  gleam  of  arithmetical  sunshine. 


286  READIAXA. 

The  American  Legislature  now  knows  the  worst. 
Seven  per  cent,  on  the  retail  price  does  domestic  copy- 
right enable  authors,  one  with  another,  to  screw  out  of 
a  book.  Seven  per  cent,  is  all  we  expect,  or  hope,  or 
ask  J  from  the  great  Republic,  and  all  the  American 
author  will  ever  get  in  England. 

The  misfortune  of  authors  is  this  —  they  cannot,  as  a 
class,  secure  any  remuneration  at  all  except  through  copy- 
right. But  copyright  effects  this  just  end  by  unpopular 
means.  It  stops  all  sale  till  it  secures  a  modest  remu- 
neration. Then  men,  forgetting  that  the  stoppage  of  sale 
is  not  the  end,  but  only  that  severe  means  to  a  just  end, 
which  the  heartless  dishonesty  of  mankind  makes  neces- 
sary, fall  into  needless  fear  of  the  tyrannical  means  that 
leads  to  a  mild  result.  This  sentiment  it  is  which  leads 
to  a  misgiving  in  the  United  States  that  international 
copyright  would  be  abused  to  enhance  the  prices  of  Eng- 
lish books.  Americans  do  not  really  know  our  book 
trade,  and  are  led  to  natural  but  erroneous  notions  of 
English  prices  by  seeing  the  three-volume  novel  adver- 
tised at  3l6\  Qd.  But  the  truth  is  we  have  a  rotten  trade 
for  the  upper  ten  thousand,  and  a  healthy  trade  for  the 
nation.  The  rotten  trade  is  the  hiring  trade ;  of  course, 
it  operates  on  books  just  as  it  does  on  pianofortes  — 
it  reduces  the  customers  to  a  handful,  and  artificial 
prices  become  a  necessity  of  that  one  narrow  market. 
The  31s.  M.  is  all  humbug,  the  public  does  not  buy  a 
copy,  the  sale  is  confined  to  the  libraries,  and  the  real 
price  is  15s.  to  18s.,  if  by  a  popular  author,  but  otherwise 
9s.  to  12s.  But  it  is  a  calamitous  system,  encourages 
the  writing  of  rubbish,  and  enables  the  librarian,  whose 
customers  are  a  class  born  to  be  humbugged,  to  hold 
back  the  good  book,  and  substitute  the  trash,  with  dis- 


EIGHTS   Am)   \YI10XGS   OF   ATJTHORS. 


287 


honest  excuses,  in  the  credulous  country  customer's  par- 
cel     But  so  far  from  clinging  to  this  rotten  trade,  in- 
telligent authors  and  publishers  in  this  country  would 
gladly  see  it  done  away  with,  and  the  universal  habit 
of  buying  books  restored :  and  I,  for  one,  look  to  the 
American  publishers  to  help  us  in  this  with  their  sounder 
system ;  for  under  just  laws,  when  a  sound  system  en- 
counters an  unsound,  it  is  always  the  unsound  that  gives 
way      Below  the  above  rotten  trade  lies  the  true  trade 
of  the  country,  — good  books  at  moderate  prices, -and 
some  books  and  periodicals  at  wonderfully  small  prices. 
These   very    novels,  sold   to   the   libraries    at  fabulous 
prices,  are  sold  to  the  public  in  one  volume  at  6s.,  os., 
and  2s.     At  2s.  they  are  in  boards,  with  an  illustration 
outside,  and  a  vignette. 

To  show  what  a  bugbear  copyright  is  m  books  ot 
durable  sale,  American  publishers  can't  produce  such  a 
volume  for  50c.,  by  stealing  the  composition,  as  the  Eng- 
lish publishers  do,  paying  copyright. 

I    submit   to   you    specimens    of    cheap   publications 
under  copyright,  and  I  challenge  the  American  publish- 
ers to  match  them  with  cheap  piratical  books  or  papers. 
However,  there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun.     The 
fear  that  British  authors  or  the  assignees  of  their  Ameri- 
can copyrights  might  stand  out  for  our  librari/ prices  m 
the  United  States  is  an  old  misgiving  which  has  had  its 
day  in  England.     Queen  Anne's  Parliament  had  much 
such  a  fear.     Well!     What  did  they  do  ?     Why,  pro- 
vided against  it  in  a  section  giving  a  right  of  complaint 
to  several  great  functionaries,  or  any  one  of  them,  and 
investing  those  dignitaries  with  special  powers  to  com- 
pel the  publication  on  reasonable  terms.     The  precaution 
proved    quite   superfluous;    for   not   one    single    human 


288  READIANA. 

being  was  so  perverse  as  to  lock  up  a  good  book,  or  sell 
it  at  a  price  the  public  could  not  afford.  The  section 
was  a  dead  letter,  and  is  now  repealed.  However,  if  the 
Legislature  of  the  United  States  is  uneasy  on  this  head, 
it  is  not  for  us,  who  ask  a  great  boon,  to  make  childish 
difficulties.  Here  is  the  cure  in  a  stroke  of  the  pen  :  — 
"  And  that  the  price  of  books  written  by  British  sub- 
jects, but  papered,  printed,  and  bound  in  the  United 
States,  as  hereinbefore  enacted,  may  not  be  unduly  en- 
hanced, be  it  enacted  that  the  proprietor  of  the  copy- 
right in  any  such  work  shall  be  compelled  to  publish,  or 
cause  the  same  to  be  published,  in  the  United  States, 
within  the  times  hereinbefore  specified,  at  a  reasonable 
price,  not  exceeding  the  highest  price  that  is  demanded 
for  a  book  of  the  same  character,  size,  and  quality, 
written  by  an  American  citizen,  and  published  at,  or 
about,  the  time  ;  and  the  price  of  such  work  shall  be 
duly  notified  and  advertised  in  three  journals  of  large 
circulation  seven  days  before  publication,  and,  should 
the  price  so  advertised  appear  excessive,  it  shall  be 
lawful    for    any    person    to    lodge    a   complaint   with 

[here  enumerate  the   functionaries],  and 

the on  the  said  complainant  giving  security 

for  costs  and  offering  evidence,  shall  have  authority  to 
suspend  the  publication  and  hear  the  evidence  without 
delay,  and,  if  the  price  advertised  be  excessive,  shall 
affix  a  just  and  reasonable  price,  provided  always  that 
in  those  cases  where  the  book*  shall  be  published  for  the 
foreign  proprietor  by  an  agent  being  a  native  of  the 
United  States,  the  agent,  or  proprietor,  shall  be  allowed 
to  add  the  reasonable  fee  of  the  agent  to  the  price  of  the 
said  book."  Add  a  clause  giving  various  and  large  dis- 
cretionary powers  to  the  said  judges. 


RIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS   OF   AUTHORS.  289 

If,  with  all  these  safeguards  to  the  American  public, 
to  the  stationers,  and  the  public,  international  stage- 
right,  against  which  no  objection  has  ever  been  offered, 
and  international  copyright,  both  properties  that  belong 
to  us  by  common  law,  are  both  refused  to  the  American 
and  British  author,  while  international  patent-right  is 
enacted,  and  yields  a  balance  of  £300,000  a  year,  Brit- 
ish money,  to  American  citizens,  then  justice  is  nothing^ 
fair  play  is  nothing ^  humanity  to  those  men  living, 
whom  the  Republic  worships  dead,  is  nothing,  and  a 
national  literature  is  nothing,  and  it  is  nothing  for  a 
great  nation  which  in  the  heat  and  misery  of  its  war, 
could  find  pity  and  substantial  generosity  for  one  set  of 
British  subjects,  and  by  so  doing  has  covered  itself  with 
glory  —  it  is  nothing,  I  say,  for  that  noble  nation  to 
single  out  another  set  of  British  subjects  less  improvi- 
dent, and  more  deserving,  and  make  war  upon  those 
worthy,  weak,  and  unarmed  men  in  time  of  peace. 

Could  I  gain  the  ear  of  one  Ulysses  Grant,  I  think  he 
would  side  with  the  weak ;  and  if  he  did  the  quintuple 
iniquity  would  soon  fall ;  for  it  is  not  so  well  defended 
as  Richmond  was. 

CHARLES   READE. 


TWELFTH   LETTER. 
Sir,  —  Permit  me  to  head  this  short  letter 

THE    IMPENITENT    THIEF. 

This  is  a  character  disapproved  in  Jewish  history. 
But  he  has  it  all  his  own  way  with  us  in  Anglo-Saxony. 
One  of  his  traits  is  to  insult  those  whom  he  pillages.    He 


290  READIANA. 

puts  one  hand  in  our  pockets,  and  sliakes  the  other  fist  in 
our  faces.  As  an  example  I  note  some  sneers  by  a  Mr. 
Pascoe,  and  other  professors  of  moral  and  arithmetical 
fog,  that  authors,  in  asking  for  international  copyright, 
show  an  excessive  love  of  money.  That  remark  applies 
more  to  those,  who  covet  the  property  of  others,  than  to 
those  who  only  covet  their  own.  It  is  a  sneer  that 
comes  as  ill  from  salaried  writers,  who  cannot  be  pil- 
laged, as  it  does  from  pensioned  lawyers;  and  it  is  a 
heartless  sneer ;  for  they  know  by  history  —  if  they 
know  anything  —  that  authors  have  passed  through  cen- 
turies of  pauperism,  misery,  and  degradation,  and  have 
only  arrived  at  modest  competence  and  decent  poverty. 
Popular  authors  are  rare,  and  even  their  income  does 
not  approach  that  of  the  prosperous  lawyer,  divine,  phy- 
sician, actor,  or  actress.  There  are  two  actors  about, 
who  have  each  made  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pounds  by  playing  a  single  part  in  two  plays,  for  which 
the  two  authors  have  not  received  two  thousand  pounds. 
The  painter  has  two  great  markets,  his  picture  and  his 
copyright.  The  author  has  but  one.  International  copy- 
right will  merely  give  him  two,  and  raise  him  to  the 
painter's  commercial  level.  No  author  has  ever  left  a 
fortune  made  by  writing.  Dickens,  the  sole  apparent 
exception,  was  a  reader  and  a  publisher.  As  a  rule, 
when  a  respectable  author  dies,  either  he  had  indepen- 
dent means,  or  the  hat  goes  round.  If  authors  are  to  be 
respected  in  Anglo-Saxony,  they  must  not  be  poor  :  they 
must  have  better  terms  at  home,  or  international  copy- 
right, to  meet  the  tremendous  advance  of  price  in  the 
necessaries  of  life.  Three  or  four  stray  individuals,  such 
as  Milton  and  Spinosa,  have  been  poor  and  dignified. 
But  they  were  rai^ce  aves.     Dignified  poverty  in  a  class 


EIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  291 

is  a  ch-imera.  It  never  existed.  The  character  of  a 
class  is  the  character  of  the  majority  in  that  class ;  now 
no  majority  has  ever  resisted  a  strong  temptation,  and 
that  is  why  all  greatly  tempted  classes  fall  as  classes. 
Johnson  knew  more  than  Camden,  and  he  says,  "  Pov- 
erty is  the  worst  of  all  temptations ;  it  is  incessant,  and 
leads,  soon  or  late,  to  loss  of  self-respect,  and  of  the 
world's  respect."  The  hypocrite  Camden  demanded  an 
author  with  aspiring  genius  and  no  eye  to  the  main 
chance.  The  model  he  demanded  crossed  his  path  in 
Oliver  Goldsmith ;  but  the  hypocrite  Camden  treated 
his  beau-ideal  with  cold  hauteur,  because  his  beau-ideal 
was  poor ;  the  same  hypocrite  was  to  be  seen  arm-in-arm 
with  Garrick,  for  he  had  lots  of  money. 

Oliver  Goldsmith,  next  to  Voltaire,  was  the  greatest 
genius  in  Europe ;  on  the  news  of  his  death  Burke  burst 
into  tears,  and  Reynolds  laid  down  his  brush  and  de- 
voted the  day  to  tender  regrets. 

I  now  cite  a  passage  verbatim  from  the  notice  on  Gold- 
smith in  the  "  Biographia  Dramatica :  "  —  "  It  was  at  first 
intended  to  bury  him  in  Westminster  Abbey ;  and  his 
pall  was  to  have  been  supported  by  the  Marquis  of 
Lansdowne,  Lord  Louth,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Mr. 
Burke,  and  Mr.  Garrick.  But  a  slight  inspection  of  his 
affairs  showed  the  impropriety  of  incurring  so  great  an 
expense.  He  was  privately  interred  in  the  Temple  burial- 
ground,  attended  by  Mr.  Hugh  Kelly,  Mr.  Hawes,  the 
Rev.  Joseph  Palmer,  and  a  few  coffee-house  acquain- 
tances." 

If  the  deceased  genius  was  poor,  Reynolds,  and  Gar- 
rick, and  the  rest,  were  rich.  They  could  have  secured 
him  the  place  he  deserved  in  the  national  temple.  But 
no ;  he  was  ]^oor  :  and  observe,  those  who  were  ready  to 


292  READIANA. 

lay  genius  in  Westminster  Abbey  had  it  been  wealthy, 
would  not  even  follow  it  to  the  Temple  Church,  when 
they  found  it  was  poor.  The  fact  is,  that  great  immortal 
genius  was  flung  into  the  earth  like  a  dog,  and  to  this 
day  nobody  knows  where  he  lies. 

I  now  cite  verbatim  from  the  "  Life  of  Mrs.  Oldfield  :  " 
—  ^'  The  corpse  of  Mrs.  Anne  Oldfield  was  carried  from 
her  house  in  Grosvenor  Street  to  the  Jerusalem  Cham- 
ber, where  it  lay  in  state,  and  afterwards  to  the  Abbey, 
the  pall  being  supported  by  the  Lord  Delawar,  Lord 
Harvey,  the  Eight  Honourable  Bubb  Doddington,  and 
other  men  of  ton.'^ 

This  lady  was  a  good  actress,  and  had  lived  in  open 
shame  with  Mr.  May n waring  and  Brigadier  Churchil, 
and  had  lots  of  money.  Therefore  this  artist  was  buried 
in  the  Abbey,  and  the  greater  artist.  Goldsmith,  being 
pure,  but  poor,  had  the  grave  of  a  dog. 

In  these  two  extracts  you  see  the  world  unmasked  by 

its  own  hand,  not  mine.     This,  my  Lord  Camden,  is  that 

dirty  world,  of  which  you  were  a  gilt  lump.     This  is  the 

real  world  as  it  is,  and  was,  and  always  will  be.     Many 

authors  are  womanish ;  so  they  listen  to  the  flatteries 

that  cost  nothing,  and,  when  they  find  it  is  all  humbug, 

they  sit  down  and  whine  for  a  world  less  hollow  and  less 

hard.     But  authors,  who  are  men,  take  the  world  as  they 

find  it,  see  its  good  sense  at  the  bottom  of  its  brutality, 

and  grind  their  teeth,  and  swear  that  the  public  weasel 

shall  not  swindle  them  into  that  unjust  poverty,  which 

the  public  hog  despises  in  an  author,  and  would  in  an 

apostle. 

CHAKLES   READE. 


RIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  293 


THIRTEENTH  LETTER. 

Sir,  —  An  egotist  has  been  defined  a  man  who  will 
burn  his  neighbour's  house  down  to  cook  himself  two 
eggs. 

If  it  be  true  that  three  or  four  American  publishers  are 
the  sole  obstacle  to  international  stage-right  and  copy- 
right, the  definition  applies,  so  great  is  the  injury  they 
do  ;  so  little,  if  any,  the  advantage  to  themselves.  How 
would  international  stage-right  injure  them  ?  Yet  it  is 
they  who  crush  it,  and  demoralise  theatrical  business,  and 
kill  the  national  drama.  How  would  even  international 
copyright,  on  the  conditions  I  have  offered,  injure  them  ? 
It  could  not  hurt  them  at  present ;  it  must  improve  their 
condition  in  the  end.  The  professors  of  arithmetical  fog 
call  it  "  a  present  to  British  authors."  The  idiots  !  is  it 
any  more  a  boon  to  English  than  to  American  authors  ? 
It  is  2i  present  to  neither.  On  the  contrary,  it  offers  the 
publisher  his  highest  remuneration  for  his  smallest  out- 
lay. Take  a  popular  English  novel  —  it  is  not  unusual 
to  sell  120,000  copies  at  a  dollar.  Under  piracy  by  law 
established,  one  publisher  does  not  get  the  sale.  Often 
the  thing  is  torn  to  pieces ;  but  let  us  limit  the  publica- 
tion to  four  persons ;  assuming  that  each  sells  about 
30,000  copies  at  a  profit  of  25  cents,  that  gives  7,500 
dols.  I  admit  that  under  international  copyright  7  per 
cent,  must  be  deducted  for  the  British  right.  But  then 
the  publisher  who  pays  the  Briton,  will  sell  all  the  books. 
Now  120,000  copies  at  a  profit  of  25  cents  minus  7  =  18 
gives  a  total  of  21,600  dollars.  And  here  you  may  see 
the  reason  why  copyrighted  books  can  be  sold  cheaper 
than  pirated  books,  yet  yield  a  good  profit. 


294  READIANA. 

Publication  of  hooks  is  in  a  general  way  a  poor  busi- 
ness. Men  of  enterprise  and  talent  would  not  descend 
to  it^but  for  the  great  prizes.  I  tlierefore  reason  fairly 
in  taking  a  book  of  large  sale  for  trade  sample ;  not  that 
120,000  copies  is  a  very  large  sale  in  the  United  States ; 
I  know  books  that  have  quadrupled  that  figure  in  a  year's 
sale. 

Under  international  copyright  the  American  publisher, 
dealing  either  by  purchase  or  otherwise  with  British 
copyright,  could  also  levy  a  just  and  moderate  tariff  on 
the  400  or  500  newspapers  that  noAv  steal  any  popular 
British  book.  So  much  for  the  American  side.  But  the 
American  publisher  would  also,  by  his  position  and  in- 
telligence, secure  many  of  the  American  copyrights  in 
England,  and,  even  if  he  contented  himself  with  an 
author's  percentage  there,  that  would  be  at  least  a  set- 
off, though  it  needs  no  set-off.  But  if,  on  the  contrary, 
he  should  take  the  public  advice  I  have  given  him,  and 
have  a  place  of  business  in  London  —  which  is  the  great 
game  —  all  manner  of  lucrative  combinations  would  arise 
under  international  copyright.  That  great  boon  would 
not  change  the  nature  of  authors  and  make  them,  as  a 
class,  hard  bargainers  or  even  good  men  of  business. 
They  deserve  7  per  cent,  in  each  market,  but  they  would 
not  be  sharp  enough  to  get  it  one  time  in  thirty. 

When  you  add  to  all  this  that  international  copyright 
would  relieve  the  American  author  of  the  competition  of 
stolen  goods,  which  is  stifling  him,  and  make  the  most 
intellectual  country  in  the  world  a  hotbed  of  intellectual 
productions,  by  which  the  American  publishers  must 
necessarily  profit  most,  their  opposition  to  international 
justice  and  public  policy  will,  I  hope,  cease  ;  for  it  would 
be  egotism  beyond  the  definition  supra ;  it  would  be  the 


RIGHTS   AND    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  295 

blind  egotism,  that  sacrifices  national  honour  and  the 
clear  interests  of  all  producers,  and  of  the  public  reader, 
to  one  sham  interest. 

With  this  letter  I  send  one  to  a  powerful  American 
firm,  offering  them  again  what  I  offered  them  years  ago, 
that,  under  international  copyright,  they  shall  be  my 
London  publishers,  if  they  please,  and  publish  my  books, 
if  they  please,  on  the  very  terms  I  will  demand  of  them 
in  Kew  York :  7  per  cent,  on  the  retail  price,  which  is 
10  per  cent,  on  the  trade  sale  price.  As  I  am  popular 
in  America,  and  perhaps  no  writer  under  international 
copyright  could  make  better  bargains,  and  as  T  pass  for 
a  screw,  this  should  tend  to  convince  reasonable  Ameri- 
cans that  international  copyright,  though  a  great  boon  to 
authors  and  honest  publishers  on  both  sides  the  water, 
is  not  a  tax  upon  any  one.  Consider  —  for  passing  my 
books  through  their  hands  in  London  I  offer  an  American 
firm  all  I  will  ask  in  New  York  for  having  written  those 
books  ;  for  having  written  those  books  I  will  ask  no  more 
in  the  United  States  than  I  offer  them  for  just  passing 
the  books  through  their  hands  in  London.  Please  bring 
your  minds  to  bear  on  this,  you  that  possess  a  mind. 

So  much  for  petty  expediency  and  financial  fog.  Ought 
these  to  stand  in  the  way  of  national  justice,  national  im- 
partiality, and  a  national  literature  ?  Ought  classes  so 
important  as  the  American  author,  the  American  specta- 
tor of  plays,  and  the  American  reader,  to  be  mocked  with 
the  title  of  Republicans,  yet  misgoverned  and  outlawed 
by  a  Venetian  oligarchy,  a  mere  handful  of  short-sighted 
traders,  clinging  blindly  to  piracy  as  some  men  cling  to 
drink,  not  that  it  does  them  an  atom  of  good,  but  just 
because  they  have  got  into  the  habit  ? 

Those  medisevals  whose  lofty  method — conjecture  v. 


296  READIANA. 

evidence  —  Sir  Joseph  Yates  follows  in  copyright,  dis- 
covered that  witches  who  rode  upon  the  whirlwind  and 
led  the  storm  could  be  arrested  in  their  furious  career  by 
two  straws  placed  across.  When  I  consider  with  what 
pitiable  reasons  the  five-fold  iniquity  has  been  defended, 
and  is  even  now  defended,  against  Mr.  Keverdy  Johnson, 
and  these  letters,  I  seem  to  see  the  men  of  the  dark  ages 
laying  down  their  straws.  Ah !  and  so  you  tliink  na- 
tional justice,  honour,  and  humanity  are  three  old  bel- 
dams that  will  never  pass  your  straws  ?  I  deem  more 
nobly  than  you  do  of  the  nation  you  disgrace  and  mis- 
lead. The  people  that  were  in  trouble  yet  relieved  the 
British  cotton-spinners  must  have  a  heart  not  bounded 
by  the  ocean ;  the  nation  that  could,  at  a  cost  of  blood 
and  treasure,  forego  the  two-legged  beast  of  burden  and 
make  the  negro  a  man,  must  have  a  conscience ;  and  our 
turn  will  come,  please  God,  though  my  head  and  heart 
may  both  have  ceased  to  ache  at  man's  bad  logic,  and 
man's  injustice.  Yes,  the  great  Republic  has  raised  its 
negro  to  the  level  of  a  man ;  it  will  one  day  admit  its 
authors  to  the  level  of  a  negro. 

Farewell,  you  four  fogs,  farewell  3^ou  rogues  and  fools 
who  made  them ;  I  leave  the  pettifogger  who  reasons  a 
priori  against  evidence,  and  divines  that  the  common 
law  abhors  forfeiture  of  a  right  —  unless  it  is  held  by  an 
author  —  and  reads  implied  contracts  as  "  exchange  of 
equivalents" — unless  one  of  the  parties  is  an  autJwr, 
and  if  an  author  gives  a  written  copy  without  reserve, 
and  abandons,  for  eighty  years,  his  right  to  publish,  says 
that  is  no  gift  of  the  right  to  publish  ;  but  if,  instead  of 
laches  and  neglect  and  all  that  really  forfeits  a  right,  he 
adds  possession  to  title  and  sells  one  copy  to  a  man,  says 
that  sale  is  a  gift  of  the  right  of  publication.     I  leave 


RIGHTS    AND    WRONGS    OF    AUTHORS.  297 

the  liars,  idiots,  and  beasts,  who  reason  thus  against  evi- 
dence, and  call  it  law,  with  one  remark :  the  greatest 
asses  God  has  ever  made  are  little  lairyers.  Your  little 
lawyer  is  a  man,  who  has  parted  with  the  good  sense  of 
the  layman,  and  has  not  advanced  one  inch  towards  the 
science  of  a  Mansfield  or  a  Story. 

I  leave  the  men  of  verbal  fog,  the  poor  addlepates,  who 
call  a  man's  sole  right  to  sell  his  own  composition  "  mo- 
nopoly," and  his  sole  right  to  sell  his  own  hen  and  her 
chickens,  his  own  seed  and  its  great  increase,  "prop- 
erty ; "  and  call  freebooting  in  copyright  with  a  30  per 
cent,  tax  on  books  "  free  trade  in  books." 

I  leave  the  ranting  rogues,  the  romantic  pickpockets, 
who  say  that  an  author  is  to  work  only  for  praise 
(against  which  dispraise  and  foul  scurrility  are  not  to 
weigh,  of  course),  but  that  a  judge  and  an  archbishop  are 
to  work  for  money  as  well  as  credit  —  in  a  word,  I  leave 
the  whole  tribe  of  gorillas  and  chimpanzees,  in  whose 
hands  I  found  this  subject,  to  recommence  their  incu- 
rable gibbering  and  chattering ;  reason  they  never  did, 
and  never  will.  As  for  me,  I  shall  take  leave  to  rise,  for 
a  little  while,  above  their  dunghill  in  a  fog,  and  speak 
as  a  man  who  by  long  study  of  the  past  has  learned  to 
divine  the  future  and  is  fit  to  advise  nations. 

1.  Justice  to  authors  is  the  durable  policy  of  nations. 

2.  The  habit  of  inventing  is  a  richer  national  treasure 
than  a  pyramid  of  stolen  inventions. 

3.  Invention  is  on  the  average  the  highest  and  hardest 
form  of  mental  labour.  It  is  the  offspring  of  necessity, 
and  nursed  by  toil. 

4.  Hence  it  follows  that  in  whatever  country  inven- 
tion can  be  appropriated  by  direct  theft,  or  adaptation,  or 
any  easy  process  except  purchase,  the  habit  of   inven- 


208  READIANA. 

tion  is  discouraged,  and  each  act  of  invention  undersold 
and  the  inventor  punished. 

5.  Therefore,  by  pirating  from  foreign  authors,  a  na- 
tion scratches  the  foreign  author's  finger,  but  cuts  the 
native  author's  throat,  and  turns  its  own  intellectual  sun 
into  a  moon,  and  robs  itself  of  the  habit  of  inventing, 
which  is  a  richer  national  treasure  than  a  pyramid  of 
stolen  inventions.  This  is  a  universal  truth :  the  ex- 
perience of  Europe  in  every  age  confirms  it,  and  in  the 
United  States  it  is  a  special  truth,  for  the  Eepublic  has 
put  justice  and  injustice  side  by  side,  so  that  even  a 
child  may  see  which  is  the  more  enduring  policy.  Of 
international  patent  right  the  result  has  been  rapid 
and  remarkable.  The  States  were  behind  us  in  inven- 
tion ;  they  soon  advanced  upon  us,  and  caught  us,  and 
now  they  head  us  far.  International  justice  began  with 
a  trade  balance  in  our  favour ;  yet  now  the  States  draw 
an  enormous  balance  from  Europe,  and  about  three  hun- 
dred thousand  a  year  from  Great  Britian.  Europe  teems 
with  the  material  products  of  American  genius.  Ameri- 
can patents  print  English  newspapers  and  sew  English- 
men's shirts;  a  Briton  goes  to  his  work  by  American 
clocks,  and  is  warmed  by  American  stoves  and  cleansed 
by  American  dust  collectors;  whereas  my  housemaid, 
when  she  dusts  with  a  British  broom,  only  drives  it  from 
pillar  to  post.  In  a  word,  America  is  the  leading  nation 
in  all  matters  of  material  invention  and  construction, 
and  no  other  nation  rivals  nor  approaches  her.  It  is 
"  Eclipse  first,  and  the  rest  nowhere." 

Now  do  but  turn  an  eye  to  the  opposite  experiment. 
What  is  the  position  in  the  world  of  the  American  au- 
thor ?  Does  he  keep  pace  with  the  American  patentee  ? 
Why,  it  is  a  complete  contrast ;  one  is  up,  the  other  is 


RIGHTS   AXD    WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  299 

down;  one  leads  old  nations,  the  other  follows  them: 
one  is  a  sun  diffusing  his  own  light  over  his  hemisphere 
and  ours,  the  other  a  pale  moon  lighted  by  Europe.     Yet 
the  American  mechanical  inventor  has  only  the  forces 
and  materials  our  mechanical   inventor  can  command; 
whereas  the  American  author  has  larger,  more  varied, 
and  richer  materials  than  ours.     Even  in  fiction,  what 
new  material  has  the  English  artist  compared  with  that 
gold  mine  of  nature,  incident,  passion,  and  character  — 
life  in  the  vast  American  Kepublic  ?     Here  you  may  run 
on  one  rail  from  the  highest  civilisation  to  the  lowest, 
and  inspect  the  intervening  phases,  and  ^vrite  the  scale 
of  man.     You  may  gather  in  a  month  amidst  the  noblest 
scenes  of   nature  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  and 
note  its  progress.     Here  are  red  man,  black  man,  and 
white  man.     With  us  man  is  all  of  a  colour,  and  nearly 
all  of   a  piece;    there  contrasts  more  piquant  than  we 
ever  see  spring  thick  as  weeds ;  larger  and  more  natural 
topics  ring  through  the  land,  discussed  with  broader  and 
freer   eloquence.     In   the  very  Senate,  the  passions  of 
well-dressed  men  break  the  bounds  of  convention ;  and 
nature  and  genuine  character  speak  out  in  places,  where 
with  us  etiquette  has  subdued  them  to  a  whisper.     Land 
of  fiery  passions,  and  humours  infinite,  you  offer  such 
a  garden  of  fruits  as  Moliere  never  sunned  himself  in, 
nor  Shakespeare  neither.     And  what  food  for  poetry  and 
romance  were  the  feats  of  antiquity,  compared  with  the 
exploits   of   this   people?     Eifty  thousand   Greeks   be- 
sieged a  Phrygian  city,  fighting  for  a  rotten  leaf ;  the 
person  of    an   adulteress  without  her  mind.     This  ten 
years'  waste  of  time  is  a   fit    subject   for    satire;  only 
genius  has  perverted  it  into  an  epic ;  what  cannot  genius 
do  ?     But  what  is  it  in  itself,  and  what  were  the  puny 


300  READIANA. 

wars  of  Pompey  and  C?esar,  compared  with  a  civil  war, 
wliere  not  a  few  thousand  soldiers  met  on  either  side  to 
set  one  Pompey  up,  one  Caesar  down ;  but  armies  like 
those  of  Xerxes  encountered  again  and  again,  fighting 
not  for  the  possession  of  a  wanton,  nor  the  pride  of  a 
general,  but  the  integrity  of  a  nation  and  the  rights  of 
man.  Yet  the  little  old  things  sound  great  and  the 
great  new  things  sound  small,  carent  quid  vate  sarco. 

The  other  day  man's  greatest  feat  of  labour  was  the 
Chinese  wall.  It  is  distanced.  An  iron  road  binds 
hemispheres  together.  See  it  carried  over  hill  and  dale, 
through  civilized  and  uncivilized  countries ;  see  the 
buffaloes  glare  and  snort ;  and  the  wild  tribes  galop  to 
and  fro  in  rage  and  terror,  as  civilization  marches  with 
sounding  tread,  from  sea  to  sea.  See  iron  labour  pierce 
the  bowels  of  the  mountain,  and  span  the  lake's  broad 
bosom.  It  creeps  ;  it  marches ;  it  climbs ;  it  soars ;  it 
never  halts ;  the  savages  arm,  and  saddle  their  wild 
steeds ;  they  charge ;  they  fire ;  they  wheel  about,  with 
flaming  eyes  and  flying  arrows ;  but  civilization  just 
takes  its  rifle  in  one  hand  and  its  pick  in  the  other, 
and  the  labours  of  war  and  peace  go  on  together,  and 
still  the  mighty  iron  road  creeps,  climbs,  and  marches 
from  hemisphere  to  hemisphere,  and  sea  to  sea. 

These  are  the  world-wide  feats  that  touch  mankind, 
and  ought  to  thrill  mankind.  Yet  they  go  for  less 
than  small  old  things  done  in  holes  and  corners  — carent 
quia  vate  sacro.  Por  there,  where  the  soil  is  so  fertile, 
art  is  sterile.  Few  are  the  pens  that  glow  with  sacred 
fire ;  few  great  narrators ;  and  not  one  great  dramatist. 
Read  the  American  papers  —  you  revel  in  a  woi-ld  of 
new  truths,  new  fancies,  and  glorious  crude  romance, 
awaiting  but  the  hand  of   art ;  you  roll   in  gold-dust. 


RIGHTS   AND   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  301 

Read  their  dramas  or  narratives  —  How  French. !  How 
British !  How  faint  beside  the  swelling  themes  life 
teems  with  in  this  nation,  that  is  thinking,  working, 
speaking,  living,  and  doing  everything  except  writing,  at 
a  rate  of  march  without  a  present  rival  or  a  past  parallel " 
beneath  the  sun. 

The  reason  is  nine-tenths  of  their  heaven-born  writers 
are  nipped  in  the  bud,  snubbed,  starved,  and  driven  out 
of  immortal  literature  by  piracy  before  they  can  learn  so 
profound  and  difficult  an  art.  Some  driven  into  busi- 
ness ;  some  driven  on  to  the  land,  which  there,  God,  in 
his  mercy,  has  thrown  open  to  the  oppressed ;  some 
driven  into  journals  that  go  bankrupt  by  the  hundred. 

Mr.  Emerson:  "There  are  men  in  this  country  who 
can  put  their  thoughts  in  brass,  in  iron,  stone,  or  wood ; 
who  can  build  the  best  ships  for  freight,  and  the 
swiftest  for  ocean  race.  Another  makes  revolvers,  an- 
other a  power  press.  But  scarcely  one  of  our  authors 
has  thrown  off  British  swaddling  clothes.  The  great 
secret  of  the  world-wide  success  of  ^  Uncle  Tom '  was  its 
novelty  ;  it  had  something  peculiarly  American  in  it. 
The  works  of  American  authors  have  been  smothered 
under  English  authors  in  the  American  market.  Not 
only  has  the  wholesale  system  of  mal-appropriation 
most  injuriously  affected  the  interests  of  living  Ameri- 
can authors,  but  it  has  a  tendency  to  dwarf  down  the 
original  literature  of  the  United  States  to  a  servile 
copyism,  and  to  check  the  development  of  the  national 
mind." 

Piracy  is  a  upas  tree.  If  you  really  love  your  great 
Eepublic,  and  wish  to  see  it  honoured  and  appreciated, 
down  with  that  upas  tree,  and  you  will  lead  the  world  in 
art  as  well  as  in  mechanics.     The  gorillas  and  chimpan- 


302  KEADIANA. 

zees  are  not  ashamed  to  say  that  they  see  no  conse- 
quences of  international  justice,  but  that  books  will  be 
dearer  in  the  States.  Perhaps  not,  and  for  that  very 
reason  we  don't  look  to  gorillas  for  prescience,  or  to 
chimpanzees  for  prophecy. 

Of  international  copyright  and  stage-right  the  follow- 
ing are  a  few,  and  only  a  few,  of  the  certain  conse- 
quences :  — 

1.  The  American  publishers  will  say,  ^'  Confound  John 
Bull.  We'll  show  him  we  can  do  without  him."  They 
will  read  American  MS.  with  a  kindlier  eye.  Young 
American  authors  will  get  a  chance  to  learn  their  art  by 
practice. 

2.  American  publishers  will  have  a  place  of  business 
in  London.  Combinations  will  arise  they  never  dreamt 
of.  They  will  do  all  sorts  of  business  with  our  authors 
and  publishers,  and  often  take  the  whole  property  in 
Britain,  her  colonies,  and  the  States. 

3.  Australia,  seeing  so  good  an  example,  will  fall  into 
better  practical  arrangements  both  with  Great  Britain 
and  the  States.  Waste  a  few  years  more  and  she  will 
pillage  us  both. 

4.  The  deep  and  sullen  resentment  British  authors 
now  feel  against  the  American  nation  will  give  way  to 
kindly  and  grateful  feelings.  They  will  go  over  to  the 
States,  not  to  fleece  the  natives  in  return,  by  reading 
poor  lectures  in  a  country  of  good  lectures,  nor  yet  to 
skim  a  few  States  with  jaundiced  eye  and  publish  shal- 
low venom;  but  to  sojourn  and  study,  with  keen  and 
kindly  eye,  the  nation,  best  worth  studying  in  the  uni- 
versal globe.  From  this  will  arise-  great  pictures  of 
American  life  with  some  inaccuracies. 

5.  Taught  by  foreigners  their  own  treasures,  Ameri- 


EIGHTS   AXD   WRONGS    OF   AUTHORS.  303 

cans  will  begin  to  take  bird's-eye  views  of  American  life, 
and  we  shall  get  great  American  narratives  of  all  sorts, 
and,  by-and-by,  a  great  play  or  two. 

6.  The  American  women,  better  cultivated  than  other 
women,  reared  with  larger  minds,  and  less  overburdened 
with  domestic  cares,  will  begin  to  take  their  true  place  in 
Anglo-Saxon  literature.     A  brilliant  career  awaits  them. 

7.  Americans  are  mortified,  and  justly,  at  the  sullen 
apathy  of  Europe  and  British  indifference.  It  will  soon 
cease  when  the  cause  ceases.  They  have  made  a  bad 
selection ;  the  Britons  they  should  have  outlawed  are  the 
chimney-sweeps,  not  the  intellectual  lords  who  guide 
public  opinion.  All  they  do  will  be  noticed  and  criti- 
cised justly,  and  no  nation  is  the  worse  for  that. 

8.  International  property  is  a  bond  of  friendship  and 
a  security  for  peace  and  good- will.  There  will  be  in  each 
coimtry  several  persons  holding  property  in  the  other, 
and  desirous  to  compose  differences,  not  inflame  them; 
whereas  the  writer  for  wages  is  comparatively  reckless, 
and  has  often  jeopardised  peace  with  his  stings. 

9.  Eventually  the  States  will  produce  beyond  men's 
wildest  dreams  at  present.  Nature  is  rich ;  we  are  too 
apt  to  bound  her  by  the  narrow  experience  of  our  own 
life.  Time,  population,  and  encouragement  will  grow 
another  Scott,  another  Cooper,  another  Byron,  and  even 
perhaps  another  Shakespeare;  for,  under  equal  rights, 
intellectual  giants  are  far  more  likely  to  spring  in  the 
States  than  here.  The  studies  of  Bret  Harte,  the  pas- 
torals of  Carleton,  and  other  true  gleams  of  genius  that 
now  come  from  the  States  are  like  jets  of  water  forcing 
their  way  through  a  sea-wall.  The  gorillas  and  chim- 
panzees look  at  them,  and  say  <^  that  is  all  the  water  there 
IS."     To  a  higher  intelligence  they  show  how  strong  is 


304  READIANA. 

nature,  that  any  water  at  all  can  come  through  the  bar- 
rier of  bad  laws.  Remove  the  wall,  and  the  infinite 
waters  will  flow,  where  now  those  struggling  jets  reveal 
the  curbed  ocean. 

The  true  law-giver  is  rare.  For  ages  senators  have 
preferred  party  to  mankind,  and  it  has  made  them  as 
ephemeral  as  gad-flies.  Your  Solon  and  L3'curgus  climbed 
hills  above  the  dust  of  strife  and  the  mists  of  clique,  and 
took  a  bird's-eye  view  of  all  the  land.  If,  amongst  my 
American  readers  there  is  one  senator,  to  whom  the  old 
Republican  law-giver  seems  a  bigger,  and  a  better,  and 
a  more  enduring  man,  than  the  ephemeral  mouth-piece 
of  ephemeral  party,  he  can  play  the  ancient  law-giver  on 
a  grander  field  than  antiquity  afforded.  It  is  not  every 
day  that  a  single  earnest  statesman  can  brighten  the  tar- 
nished escutcheon  of  a  great  and  generous  Republic,  and 
heal  the  deep  wound  of  a  kindred  nation,  cut  down  a 
five-fold  iniquity  and  a  national  upas  tree,  lay  the  first 
stone  of  a  mighty  literature,  and  earn  the  gratitude  of 
the  greatest  minds  in  two  great  countries.  This  would 
be  to  rise  above  the  mob  of  senators,  the  noisy  squabblers 
of  a  Congress,  and  them  "  whose  talk  is  of  bullocks."  If 
there  be  such  a  man  at  Washington  —  and  surely  there 
must  be  many  —  let  him  hold  out  his  hand  and  grasp 
true  honour,  not  vociferous,  but  lasting;  the  arts,  im- 
mortal themselves,  confer  immortal  fame,  or  infamy,  on 
friend  and  foe ;  cliques  and  parties  come  and  go ;  but 
these  flow  on  forever ;  and,  though  no  greasy  palms  ap- 
plaud their  champion,  to  the  bray  of  trumpets,  and  the 
flare  of  gas,  a  mild  but  lasting  light,  still  brightening  as 
justice  spreads  and  civilisation  marches,  shall  hover 
around  his  living  head,  and  gild  his  memory  when  dead. 
The  words  of  Reade  are  ended. 


RIGHTS   AND    WRONGS   OP   AUTHORS.  305 

Sir,  —  I  did  intend  to  go  into  the  domestic  wrongs  of 
authors.  But,  as  a  commission  of  inquiTy  is  about  to 
collect  facts,  \t  would  be  more  proper,  on  many  accounts, 
to  postpone  that  matter.  Besides  I  have  already  intruded 
too  long.  Be  pleased  to  accept  our  thanks  for  the  sacri- 
fice you  have  made  to  justice  ;  you  have  allowed  a  worthy 
but  unpopular  subject  to  occupy  many,  many  columns  of  a 
popular  journal,  and  both  American  and  English  authors 
owe  you  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude,  which,  unfortunately, 
we  can  only  pay  in  words. 

CHARLES  EEADE. 


o06  KEADIANA. 


LETTER   TO   MR.   J.   R.   LOWELL 

(UNITED  STATES  MINISTER), 

ON   INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 

19,  Albert  Gate,  Knightsbridge, 

-r^  Ti/r       T  September  2,  1880. 

Dear  Mr.  Lowell, 

You  are  good  enough  to  desire  my  opinion  upon 
a  proposed  Copyright  Treaty  between  the  United  States 
and  Great  Britain,  "  the  principal  feature  of  which  is  the 
granting  of  Copyright,  provided  the  book  be  manufac- 
tured in  the  country  so  granting  it  by  a  subject  or  citizen 
thereof  within  three  months  of  its  publication  by  the 
author." 

To  reply  to  this  outline  I  must  ask  to  dissect  it ;  for 
here  in  one  sentence  are  two  proposals  that  I  consider 
heterogeneous,  and  even  discordant. 

Permit  me  then  to  put  the  matter  thus :  — 

1.  —  The  book  to  be  manufactured  in  the  country  grant- 
ing Copyright,  by  a  subject  or  citizen. 

2.  —  This  to  be  done  (and  I  conclude  the  book  pub- 
lished) within  three  months,  &c. 

No.  1.  —  Let  us  examine  precisely  the  grievance  this 
treaty  proposes  to  alleviate. 

An  author's  work  which,  when  worth  pirating,  is  the 
fruit  of  great  labour,  consists  of  an  essential  substance 
and  a  vehicle. 

The  substance  is  the  composition ;  the  vehicle  is  gen- 
erally paper  and  words  written  with  ink. 


-LETTER    TO    :\m.    J.    R.    LOWELL.  307 

That  the  composition  is  the  substance  —  though  puny- 
lawyers  and  petty  statesmen  cannot  see  it,  is  shown  by 
this  —  it  can  be  sold  viva  voce  apart  from  paper  and 
written  or  printed  words :  dramatic  compositions  are  so 
sold,  and  the  first  Epic  poem  was  so  delivered  to  the 
public  for  centuries,  and  the  Chronicles  of  Froissart  were 
sold  viva  voce  by  the  author,  and  to  his  great  profit,  and 
no  copies  made  till  he  died ;  and  the  public  used  to  pay 
Dickens  a  much  higher  price  for  his  spoken  compositions, 
than  for  the  same  compositions  papered,  printed,  and 
bound. 

A  printed  book,  or  play,  is  only  the  manuscript  multi- 
plied ;  the  composition  remains  the  substance  ;  the  paper, 
print,  and  binding,  are  still  a  mere  vehicle,  and  not  the 
only  one ;  the  Theatre  sells  the  same  composition  with 
quite  a  different  vehicle. 

Xow  the  grievance  of  authors  against  nations  cultivat- 
ing piracy  is  this  —  they  rob  the  foreign  workman,  who 
produces  the  substance,  of  a  book  or  play,  yet  remunerate 
all  the  workmen,  ivhether  native  or  foreign,  who  produce 
the  mere  vehicle.  The  injury  is  levelled  at  the  foreign 
author  qua  author,  and  not  qua  foreigner. 

Let  a  foreign  author  cross  the  water  with  a  play  and 
a  book.  Let  him  go  into  a  theatre  and  a  printing-house ; 
let  him  play  one  of  those  many  characters  he  has  created 
in  his  drama,  and  print  fifty  pages  of  his  own  composi- 
tion, he  can  extort  remuneration  —  although  he  is  a  for- 
eigner —  for  both  vehicles ;  but  he  can  enforce  none  for 
the  far  more  valuable  substance  he  has  created  with  in- 
finitely greater,  higher,  and  longer  labour.  Here  then  is 
an  exceptional  fraud  levelled  at  exceptional  merit,  and 
one  producing  labour  picked  out  of  a  dozen  for  pillage, 
though  what  he  produces  contributes  more  to  the  aggre- 


308  ilEADIANA. 

gate  value,  than  the  labour  of  all  the  other  workmen 
concerned. 

This  iniquity  may  pay  a  handful  of  booksellers,  or 
theatrical  managers,  in  a  nation  cultivating  Piracy,  but 
it  massacres  the  authors  of  that  nation  by  the  competi- 
tion of  stolen  compositions,  and  it  robs  the  nation  of  the 
habit  of  literary  and  dramatic  invention,  which  is  a 
greater  national  treasure  than  any  amount  of  stolen  com- 
positions, since  the  nation,  which  harbours  pirates,  has 
to  pay  the  full  price  for  the  vehicles,  and  does  not  get 
the  substance  or  composition  for  nothing,  any  the  more 
because  its  booksellers  and  theatrical  managers  do.  In- 
deed, as  to  the  latter,  the  prices  are  never  lowered  to  the 
native  public  one  cent,  in  those  cases  where  the  manager 
steals  the  drama  from  a  foreign  author. 

Now  proposition  1,  taken  singly,  entirely  cures  the 
above  grievance,  so  far  as  printed  books  are  concerned. 

Authors  have  a  moral  right  to  be  paid  for  their  com- 
positions, in  every  nation  where  the  vehicle  is  paid  for 
and  the  combination  sold,  not  given  away  ;  but  they  have 
no  moral  claim,  that  I  am  aware  of,  to  create  and  sell 
the  veMde  in  a  distant  land,  and  if  they  have  no  such 
right,  still  less  can  their  native  publishers  —  mere  oc- 
casional assignees  of  copyright  —  pretend  to  acquire  a 
right  from  authors,  which  authors  themselves  do  not 
claim. 

The  United  States  are  a  protectionist  nation,  and  it 
would  be  egotistical  and  childish  of  English  authors  to 
expect  that  nation  to  depart  from  its  universal  policy, 
and  to  make  an  exception  in  favour  of  authors,  and  their 
mere  occasional  assignees ;  our  cry  is  "  no  partiality ! " 
To  ask  you  to  deviate  from  your  universal  policy  would 
be  to  ask  for  "  some  partiality." 


LETTER    TO    MR.    J.    R.    LOWELL.  309 

Proposition  2.  —  This  rests  on  no  basis  of  universal 
equity  or  of  uniform  national  policy.  It  does  not  come 
from  the  mind  o':  any  American  lawyer  or  statesman. 
It  is  one  of  those  subtle  suggestions  of  Piracy,  with 
which  all  copyright  acts  are  marred.  Copyrights  are 
neither  meal  nor  meat,  and  therefore,  like  other  products 
of  high  civilisation,  they  cannot  obtain  their  just  value 
on  a  forced  sal^.  But  three  months  to  transact  the  sale 
of  the  composition  and  also  create  the  vehicle  is  a  very 
forced  sale. 

Habits  are  strong,  and  this  proviso  would  encourage 
the  bad  habit  the  treaty  professes  to  cure,  instead  of 
stimulating  a  good  one.  It  would  turn  all  the  publish- 
ers, on  both  sides  the  water,  into  Lot's  wives,  hankering 
after  dear  old  Piracy,  and  longing  to  put  the  clock  on 
three  months.  By  hanging  back  during  that  short  pe- 
riod they  might  drive  even  popular  authors  into  a  corner. 
But  the  proviso  would  do  a  much  worse  thing  than  that 
—  the  rising  American  author,  who  is  literally  withering 
under  the  present  system,  and  who  is  the  victim,  that 
needs  loyal  and  earnest  protection,  far  more  than  any 
British  author  does  —  would  be  juggled,  under  this  pro- 
viso. For  some  years  he  must  necessarily  come  into  our 
market  at  a  certain  disadvantage  independent  of  law. 
British  publishers  would  either  offer  him  one-tenth  of 
his  value  or  demand  time  to  see  how  his  book  sold  in  the 
United  States :  and  then,  having  gained  time,  would  use 
this  proviso,  steal  his  composition,  if  it  proved  a  success, 
or  chuck  him  a  bone  instead  of  his  just  slice. 

But  these  comments,  you  will  understand,  are  levelled 
at  the  nude  proviso  as  you  have  presented  it  to  me. 

If  your  government  has  foreseen  that  it  is  certain  to 
be  abused,  and  to  render  the  whole  treaty  more  or  less 


310  KEADIANA. 

illusory,  and  therefore  intends  to  control  it  by  some 
other  clause,  that  is  another  matter. 

If  not,  and  the  proviso  has  been  incautiously  inserted 
with  the  reasonable  desire  to  protect  the  public  against 
a  foreign  author's  refusal  to  sell  his  copyright  at  all,  or 
on  reasonable  terms,  the  whole  case  could  be  met  by  an 
additional  clause  giving  the  foreign  author  or  proprietor 
the  right  to  apply  to  the  Judges  in  Banco  for  an  exten- 
sion of  the  term,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  offered  the 
copyright,  or  a  share  in  it,  or  the  use  of  it,  but  had  been 
unable  to  obtain  terms  corresponding  in  any  degree  with 
his  market  value  at  home.  The  judges  to  have  the  right 
to  receive  written  evidence,  less  strict  than  a  jury  would 
require,  and  to  extend  the  term  or  authorise  the  foreign 
proprietor  to  publish  through  a  native  agent,  or  afford 
some  other  relief,  under  the  vital  conditions  of  the 
treaty. 

Having  gone  deeper  into  the  matter  than  I  intended, 
I  may  as  well  volunteer  a  remark  or  two  outside  your 
queries,  which  may  be  of  service  to  the  American  Legis- 
lator, if  he  will  receive  it  from  me. 

There  are  two  great  literary  properties  of  nearly  equal 
value  and  importance. 

1.  A  man's  exclusive  right  to  print  and  publish  the 
composition  he  has  created,  whether  history,  romance, 
treatise,  or  drama,  etc. 

2.  His  exclusive  right  to  represent  on  a  public  stage 
the  dramatic  composition  he  has  created. 

No.  1  is  called  Copyright,  No.  2  is  called  Stage-right. 
But,  unfortunately,  the  Anglo-Saxon  muddlehead  has 
hitherto  avoided  the  accurate  term,  stage-right,  and  ap- 
plied, in  the  teeth  of  sense,  grammar,  and  logic,  tlje 
imbecile  phrase,   "  dramatic  copyright,"  to  No.  2.     But 


LETTER    TO   MR.    J.    R.    LOWELL.  31l 

the  phrase,  "dramatic  copyright,"  means  the  sole  right 
of  printing  and  publishing  a  play -book,  or  it  means  noth- 
ing at  all.  It  cannot  mean,  nor  be  made  to  mean  the 
right  of  representing  a  play.  Now  men  are  the  slaves 
of  words  ;  and  so  our  law-givers  and  yours,  having  the 
word  "  copyright "  dinned  eternally  into  their  ears,  and 
never  hearing  the  word  "  stage-right,"  are  at  this  moment 
in  a  fool's  paradise.  They  imagine  copyright  to  be  an 
all  important  right  and  stage-right  an  insignificant  affair. 

Pure  chimera !  stage-right  is  at  least  as  important  as 
copyright,  and  international  morality  and  sound  policy 
demand  international  stage-right  as  much  as  they  do  in- 
ternational copyright. 

Our  two  nations  invest  their  money  on  the  following 
scale. 

1.  A  vast  sum  daily  in  newspapers,  of  which  the  title 
is  copyright ;  but  not  the  contents.  These  protect  them- 
selves from  fatal  piracy ;  they  die  a  natural  death  every 
afternoon,  and  so  escape  assassination  next  morning. 

2.  A  small  sum,  daily,  in  books. 

3.  A  large  sum,  daily,  in  represented  plays  —  one  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  sterling  per  day  at  the  very  least. 

As  regards  2  and  3,  you  will  find  the  comparative 
scale  indicated  in  the  newspapers  themselves ;  these, 
with  unerring  instinct,  discover  the  habits  of  their  na- 
tion. Take  them  through  the  breadth  of  the  land,  you 
will  find  they  review  a  book  now  and  then,  but  they  are 
eternally  puffing  plays,  and  at  great  length. 

Now  by  piracy  of  stage-right  from  foreigners,  a  nation 
loses  its  chance  of  that  great  treasure,  a  national  drama, 
and  does  not  get  one  cent  per  annum  in  exchange  for 
that  serious  deprivation.  The  piratical  publisher  pre- 
tends he  sells  a  book  cheaper  for  stealing  the  composi- 


312  READIANA. 

tion.  It  is  notJ  true  ;  for,  if  he  bought  the  composition 
under  a  copyriglit  act,  he  would  sell  all  the  copies  in- 
stead of  sharing  the  sale  with  other  pirates  ;  and  so 
could  sell  cheaper  than  in  the  way  of  Piracy  :  but,  if  not 
true,  it  is  plausible,  and  has  deceived  shallow  statesmen 
by  the  score. 

But  the  piratical  manager  of  a  theatre  does  not  even 
pretend  to  lower  his  prices  to  the  public  in  those  cases, 
when  he  steals  the  composition. 

There  are,  besides  all  this,  two  special  reasons  why 
you  should  propose  international  stage-right  to  the  Brit- 
ish Government,  along  with  international  copyright,  and 
not  as  an  afterclap,  which  you  will  have  to  do  if  you  will 
not  listen  to  Cassandra,  better  known  in  Knightsbridge 
as  Charles  Keade.  One  is,  that  the  people  most  likely 
to  give  you  trouble  in  this  country,  over  international 
copyright,  are  the  British  publishers.  Habitual  crea- 
tors of  the  vehicle  and  not  of  the  composition  and  the 
copyright,  they  will  naturally  think  it  very  hard  they 
are  not  to  be  allowed  to  create  the  vehicle  in  the  United 
States. 

Their  opposition  might  be  serious ;  because,  for  some 
generations,  they  have  been  allowed  to  thrust  themselves 
forward  and  put  the  authors  unreasonably  in  the  back- 
ground. 

To  discuss  with  our  Government  the  two  great  proper- 
ties authors  create,  viz. :  stage-right  and  copyright, 
would  tend  to  open  John  Bull's  eyes  and  show  him  which 
is  really  the  leading  character  in  literary  property,  the 
authors,  who  create  all  the  stage-rights  and  all  the  copy- 
rights, or  the  publishers,  who  acquire  by  assignment 
about  one-third  of  the  copyrights  only,  and  none  of  the 
stage-rights. 


LETTER    TO    MR.    J.    R.    LOWELL.  313 

The  second  reason  is  that  at  present  the  American 
dramatic  author  suffers  a  special  iniquity,  b}'  A  ct  of  Par- 
liament, deteriorating  the  common  law  of  England. 

If  a  British  author  writes  a  drama,  represents  it  on 
the  stage  in  Great  Britain,  but  does  not  publish  it,  and 
then  exports  it  to  the  United  States,  he  possesses  the  sole 
right  of  representation  in  the  United  States,  or,  at  all 
events,  in  the  principal  States.  This  has  been  decided 
by  your  judges  after  full  and  repeated  discussion. 

The  American  dramatist,  until  1842,  possessed  the 
same  right  under  the  law  of  England ;  and  accordingly 
Macklin  v.  Eichardson,  which  is  the  English  case  that 
protects  all  unpublished  dramas  under  the  common  law, 
was  lately  cited  with  authority  in  the  tribunals  of  the 
United  States  on  the  occasion  I  have  referred  to. 

But  our  copyright  act  of  1842  poked  its  nose  into  stage- 
right,  with  which  it  had  nothing  on  earth  to  do,  and  in- 
serted an  unjust,  oppressive,  and  unreasonable  clause, 
outlawing  from  stage-right  all  dramas  not  first  repre- 
sented in  Great  Britain.  The  framers  of  this,  and  a 
similar  clause  in  the  body  of  the  act,  mistook  the  root  of 
an  author's  title.  The  poor  souls  imagined  it  accrues  by 
publication  or  representation  under  an  Act  of  Parliament, 
whereas  it  accrues  earlier  in  time,  and  by  an  older  and 
much  higher  title,  viz. :  creation,  and  under  the  common 
law. 

Test.  —  Let  A.  write  a  MS.  and  lend  it  to  B.  B.  print 
and  publish  it,  and  register  it  at  Stationers'  Hall,  and 
hand  the  MS.  back  uninjured,  without  a  scratch  on  it,  to 
A.  A.  would  sue  B.  for  breach  of  copyright,  under  the 
common  law,  and  B.'s  parliamentary  title,  by  publica- 
tion and  registration,  would  prove  not  worth  a  rush 
against  the  precedent  title  by  creation  and  common  law. 


31'!  READIANA. 

The  American  dramatist,  therefore,  is  by  the  above 
clause  in  an  act  that  had  no  need  to  run,  like  a  frolic- 
some colt,  out  of  copyright  into  stage-right,  and  so  ex- 
tend the  field  of  its  blunders,  subjected  to  a  special 
iniquity. 

In  copyright  there  is,  at  present,  a  sort  of  equity  of 
fraud.  Eob  my  authors,  and  I  will  rob  your  authors. 
But  in  stage-right  it  is  pure  iniquity,  and  the  American 
dramatist  the  victim.  ' 

These  are  the  principal  reasons  why  I  venture  to 
advise  you  not  to  exclude  international  stage-right  from 
your  discussion  of  international  copyright  with  the  Brit- 
ish Government. 

I  must  now  apologize  for  my  presumption  —  which, 
however,  arises  from  good-will  —  and  for  the  crude  and 
hasty  character  of  these  comments.  But  I  present  them 
to  one  who  is  well  able  to  sift  the  chaff  from  the  grain, 
and  so  make  the  best  of  them. 
I  am, 

My  dear  Mr.  Lowell, 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

CHARLES  EEADE. 


VICAKIA,  315 


VICARIA. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "  Daily  Telegraph." 

Sir,  —  There  is  a  little  stroke  of  business  going  to  be 
done  next  Friday  in  the  little  town  of  Uxbridge,  against 
which  I  beg  to  record  a  little  protest.  It  is  a  public 
auction  of  a  very  small  personalty  professedly  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Crown ;  but  I  apprehend  the  proceeds  will 
go  to  another  branch  of  the  revenue.  This  sale  and  the 
threatened  appropriation  of  certain  money  which  Was 
regarded  by  the  deceased  holder  as  trust-money,  arose 
out  of  the  following  circumstances :  The  Eev.  W.  Orr,  a 
Konconformist  minister,  wrote,  with  his  own  hand,  Aug- 
ust 6,  1881,  a  will,  containing  a  just  and  proper  disposi- 
tion of  his  small  property.  He  bequeathed  £50  to  New 
College,  Hampstead;  £50  in  three  sums  to  three  poor 
Christian  women  who  had  been  his  housekeepers  at  dif- 
ferent periods ;  a  few  of  his  choicest  books  to  clerical 
friends ;  his  gold  watch  and  chain  to  a  Miss  Ellen  Orr  ; 
and  the  balance,  after  payment  of  expenses,  to  a  Mrs. 
W.  Orr.  But  as  to  a  sum  of  £300,  he  did  not  bequeath 
it,  but  directed  it  to  be  returned  to  Miss  Sarah  Peters  ; 
and  he  appointed  a  Mr.  Harris  his  executor.  Mr.  Orr 
showed  this  will  at  various  times  to  several  persons  who 
knew  his  handwriting ;  and  its  contents  became  public. 
They  even  reached  the  three  poor  housekeepers;  and 
that  is  a  sad  feature  of  the  case  at  present.  A  few  days 
before  Mr.  Orr  died,  a  dear  friend  of  his  learned  that 


316  READIANA. 

his  will  was  not  attested,  and  advised  him  to  repair  that 
omission.  Mr.  Orr  assented,  but  death  surprised  him 
before  he  could  execute  his  declared  purpose.  lie  died 
February  7,  1882,  deeply  mourned  by  his  own  flock  and 
revered  by  all  good  Christians  in  the  town  of  Uxbridge. 

He  had  no  relations  in  law.  His  will  was  attested,  in 
fact,  by  half  a  dozen  witnesses,  but  not,  in  law,  "  by 
two,"  and  therefore  his  property  lay  at  the  mercy  of 
what  cuckoos  still  call  "  the  Crown,"  but  accuracy  —  if 
such  a  bird  of  paradise  existed  in  England  —  would  call 
*'the  Ee venue." 

However,  high-minded  men,  acting  in  the  name  of  the 
Crown,  have  of  late  been  very  shy  of  confiscating  even 
in  cases  of  felony,  and  as  Mr.  Orr  was  not  a  felon,  but 
only  a  saint  and  an  Irishman,  and  therefore  could  not, 
ex  v'l  tenninoruin,  be  a  man  of  business,  we  hoped  that 
the  Lords  of  the  Treasury  would  respect  his  solemn 
wishes,  since  they  are  as  clear,  and  clearer,  than  if  the 
will  had  been  drawn  by  a  lawyer's  clerk  and  signed  by 
two  witnesses. 

Accordingly  the  matter  went  before  the  Lords  of  the 
Treasury  in  two  forms. 

1.  Sarah  Peters  petitioned  for  the  return  of  her  £300, 
as  above. 

2.  Mr.  Harris,  executor,  offered  to  act  and  discharge 
all  the  debts,  expenses,  and  legacies,  if  the  Lords  of  the 
Treasury  would  forgo  their  claim. 

Miss  Peters  tells  me  she  has  received  no  reply. 

Mr.  Harris  has  heard  only  from  the  Solicitor  of  the 
Treasury,  ordering  an  immediate  sale  of  the  property  — 
with  one  exception.  His  vicarious  Majesty,  the  Solici- 
tor for  the  Treasury,  accords  to  the  executor  the  right  to 
withhold  the  choice  books,  but  not  the  right  to  withhold 


VICAHIA.  317 

the  gold  watch  and  chain,  which  were  as  solemnly  be- 
queathed to  a  person  specified  as  the  books  were.  Now, 
I  did  not  expect  this  Imperial  edict  and  high-minded, 
though  illogical,  distinction  to  be  signed  by  the  chief  of 
that  bureau,  for  he  has  valued  books  far  more  than  gold 
from  his  youth  up  until  now.  But,  by  what  I  can  learn, 
the  edict  is  not  signed  by  any  Lord  of  the  Treasury 
whatever.  It  is  clear  on  the  face  of  things  that  neither 
the  petition  of  Miss  Peters  nor  the  proposal  of  Mr. 
Harris  has  been  laid  before  the  Lords  of  the  Treasury, 
nor  considered  by  responsible  men.  Yet  prompt  action 
is  taken  at  once  by  vicarious  rapacity.  There  is  no  vice 
in  any  of  the  individuals  concerned ;  it  is  merely  a 
vicious  system.  The  Solicitor  of  the  Treasury  would  not 
pounce  upon  this  property  for  his  personal  benefit ;  the 
Lords  of  the  Treasury  will  bring  their  understandings 
and  their  consciences  to  bear  on  the  matter  —  after  a  few 
months  or  years ;  and  will  probably  decide  in  favour, 
not  of  English  law,  but  of  Continental  law  and  universal 
morality,  both  of  which  support  this  deceased  clergy- 
man's will  written  by  his  own  hand  and  shown  to  his 
friends.  But,  meantime,  this  harsh  auction,  ordered  with 
inconvenient  and  indecorous  haste,  over  a  new-made 
grave  —  this  present  activity  of  vicarious  greed  and  dead 
silence  as  to  equity  to  come  —  have  shocked  and  revolted 
a  thousand  mourners,  and  cruelly  disappointed  the  hum- 
bler legatees  as  well  as  excited  some  public  odium.  I 
do  not  wish  to  inflame  their  feelings,  but  to  suggest  their 
removal.  Therefore,  as  my  views  are  always  unintelli- 
gible to  the  clerks  and  secretaries,  the  duffers,  the  buf- 
fers, and  the  agents,  of  a  public  ofB.ce,  and  I  can  no  more 
get  a  manuscript  past  that  incarnate  rampart  of  ^'vica- 
ria  "  than  Miss  Peters  or  Mr.  Harris  can,  Avill  you  kindly 


318  READIANA. 

allow  me  to  approach  the  magnates  of  the  Treasury  by 
the  only  direct  road  I  know  —  viz.,  the  columns  of  a 
great  public  journal  ?  I  think,  my  lords,  it  would  be 
well  to  let  the  people  know  without  delay  that  you  in- 
tend personally  to  consider  the  question  whether  or  not, 
under  the  peculiar  circumstances,  any  portion  of  this 
deceased  clergyman's  estate,  except  the  amount  of  legacy 
duty,  shall  be  finally  appropriated  by  the  State^;  and  as 
regards  the  gold  watch  and  chain,  it  is  not  too  late  to 
withdraw  them  from  the  coming  sale ;  and  I  hope  you 
will  concede  this  favour,  because,  if  they  are  thrown  into 
the  melting-pot  of  the  Treasury  next  Friday,  for  not 
being  hexaglot  bibles,  it  may  be  difficult,  even  should 
Dr.  Stevenson  vouchsafe  his  aid,  to  reintegrate  and  re- 
construct the  component  parts  so  as  to  recover  their 
value  to  the  legatee.  To  her  they  are  not  so  many 
ounces  of  jeweller's  gold,  but  the  souvenir  of  one  who 
never  wasted  time,  yet  lived  for  eternity. 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES   READE. 

March  16,  1882. 


HANG    IN    HASTE,    REPENT   AT   LEISURE.       319 


HANG  IN  HASTE,  REPENT  AT  LEISURE  : 
A   SUPPRESSED   INDICTMENT, 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Daily  Telegraph." 

September  29th,  1877. 

Sir,  —  I  read  with  surprise  and  deep  concern  these 
lines  in  the  Daily  Telegrajih,  Sept.  27:  — 

<'  The  Jury  asked  the  learned  judge  if  they  could  have 
a  copy  of  the  Indictment. 

Mr.  Justice  Hawkins  said,  '  It  would  not  help  them 
in  the  least,  written  as  it  was  in  legal  phraseology.' " 

Now,  if  the  judge  had  said,  ''Of  course,  gentlemen, 
you  have  as  much  right  to  examine  the  indictment  as  I 
have;  but  I  warn  you  it  is  written  in  a  jargon  you  are 
not  intended  to  understand,  but  only  to  pronounce  on, 
and  so  hang  your  fellow-creatures,"  there  would  have 
been  no  harm  done,  and  a  wholesome  reprimand  admin- 
istered to  the  pedantic  clique  which  words  these  public 
and  terrible  accusations  in  jargon  and  equivoques. 

But  I  infer  from  your  printed  lines  that  the  jury  asked 
for  a  copy  of  the  indictment  to  compare  with  the  con- 
densed evidence,  and  did  not  get  one. 

If  so,  the  thing  is  monstrous,  and  vitiates  the  pro- 
ceedings, creditable  as  they  were  in  many  respects. 
Consider,  sir,  the  Crown  is  not  above  the  law.  The 
Cro^vn^  in  a  prosecution  of  this  sort,  comes  before  the 


320  READIANA. 

jury,  who  are  the  country,  in  the  general  character  of 
phiintiff  and  proceeds  by  indictment.  That  indictment 
is  the  grave  and  deliberate  accusation  which  the  Crown, 
to  guard  against  the  errors  and  defects  of  the  tongue, 
submits  ill  writ  lug  to  the  judge  and  the  jury.  It  is  a 
legal  document  which  the  judge  is  bound  to  criticise 
severely,  on  grounds  of  law.  It  is  an  allegation  of  facts 
and  motives  the  jury  is  equally  bound  to  dissect  severely, 
and  compare  it  in  every  particular  with  the  evidence. 
Then,  if  there  is  a  legal  defect  in  it  no  bigger  than  a 
pin's  head,  the  judge  can  upset  the  case  in  spite  of  its 
merits ;  and  by  the  same  rule  —  whatever  the  egotism 
of  the  legal  clique  may  think  —  if  it  vary  from  the 
truth  in  its  allegations  of  fact  or  of  motives,  which  lat- 
ter are  the  vital  part  of  an  indictment,  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  jury  to  throw  it  over,  or  in  certain  cases  to  reduce 
the  verdict.  And  it  does  so  happen  that  in  cases  of 
alleged  homicide  the  indictment  ought  always  to  be  dis- 
sected without  mercy  by  the  jury,  for  here,  where  the 
Crown  ought  to  be  most  accurate,  it  is  most  apt  to  ex- 
aggerate. The  truth  is,  that  many  years  ago  the  legal 
advisers  of  the  Crown  thirsted  for  the  blood  of  accused 
persons,  and  framed  indictments  accordingly ;  and  such 
is  the  force  of  precedent  that  even  now  the  Crown  (or 
some  attorney's  clerk  we  are  content  to  call  by  that 
name)  is  somewhat  given  to  equivocating,  exaggerating, 
and  alleging  more  than  can  be  proved,  especially  in  the 
way  of  motives,  which  are  the  true  sting  of  an  indict- 
ment. 

Whatever  bad  and  unreasonable  custom  the  legal 
clique,  in  dealing  with  the  nation,  may  have  introduced 
into  our  courts,  it  is  clearly  the  duty  of  our  Crown 
Solicitor  to  lay   before  the  jury,  who  are  the  country, 


HA^G    IX    HASTE,    REPENT    AT    LEISURE.       321 

not  the  copy,  but  twelve  copies,  of  the  indictment,  before 
the  prosecuting  counsel  opens  his  lips.  The  judge  has 
no  better,  no  other,  title  to  a  copy  of  the  indictment  than 
each  several  juryman  has.  As  to  the  jargon  of  indict- 
ments,  I  have  not  found  it  so  thick  but  that  a  plain  man 
can  pick  out  of  the  rigmarole  the  facts  and  motives 
Avhereof  what  we  call  "the  Crown"  accuses  the  pris- 
oner. If  it  were,  the  matter  should  be  looked  into  at 
once.  All  cliques,  however  respectable,  are  public  ene- 
mies at  odd  times.  Many  years  ago  the  country  had  to 
compel  the  clergy  to  read  prayers  "  in  a  language  un- 
derstanded  of  the  people."  Country  v.  Clique.  Next 
we  had  to  compel  a  clique  to  give  us  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land in  English.  Country  v.  Clique.  By  and  by  we 
had  to  force  a  clique  to  drop  the  grossest  compost  of 
bad  Latin  and  bad  French  nation  ever  groaned  under, 
and  to  give  us  our  law  pleadings  in  English.  Country  v. 
Clique.  And  now,  if  it  is  seriously  asserted  that  the 
Crown  attacks  the  lives  and  liberties  of  Britons  in  a 
language  not  understanded  of  the  country,  though  the 
country  has  to  judge  both  Crown  and  prisoner,  it  is  time 
we  copied  ancestral  wisdom,  and  put  our  foot  on  imbe- 
cility No.  4.     Country  v.  Clique. 

These,  however,  are  after-considerations ;  at  present 
I  stand  upon  clear  constitutional  rights. 

I  understand  the  country  demanded  in  open  court  a 
copy  of  that  indictment,  and  did  not  get  one. 

I  repeat  that  demand  in  your  columns,  in  order  that 
the  country  may  see  it,  jargon  or  no  jargon,  and  compare 
it  with  the  evidence  in  your  columns.  Of  course  I  do 
not  address  my  demand  to  any  gentleman  in  particular. 
There  are  several  copies  in  existence.  No  doubt  some 
just  man  will  awake  from  his  slumbers  and  send  you  a 


322  READIANA. 

copy.  I  earnestly  hope  to  see  it  printed  in  extenso. 
Till  then  I  forbear  all  comments  on  the  case,  because 
the  issues  are  not  before  me,  any  more  than  they  were 
before  the  country  at  the  trial. 

Your  faithful  servant, 

CHARLES   READE. 

SECOND   LETTER. 

October  2nd,  1877. 

Sir,  —  It  is  an  old  saying  that  one  fool  makes  many. 
I  have,  however,  discovered  something  more  —  viz.,  that 
one  muddlehead  sometimes  makes  a  million,  if  he  can 
get  a  popular  journal  to  print  him, 

I  must  take  the  world  as  it  is;  and  in  so  grave  and 
terrible  a  case,  I  dare  not  let  your  correspondent  "  A.B." 
pass  unanswered. 

He  is  a  lawyer,  and  does  not  pretend  to  deny  that  the 
jury  have  as  good  a  right  to  a  copy  of  the  indictment  as 
the  judge  has.  But  he  says  that  in  a  large  experience 
of  criminal  trials,  he  never  knew  a  judge  to  hand  a  copy 
of  the  indictment  to  the  jury.  He  adds,  in  the  round- 
about style  of  men  who  do  not  think  clearly,  what  really 
comes  to  this,  that  as  the  judge  talked  a  great  deal  and 
well,  it  did  not  matter  to  the  jury  what  the  Crown  wrote. 

Now,  sir,  this  is  no  answer  to  me.  I  never  said  the 
judge  was  bound  to  volunteer  a  copy  of  the  indictment 
to  the  jury  ;  I  never  denied  the  malpractice  of  the  courts, 
and  that  the  Crown  Solicitor  does  not  hand  twelve  copies 
to  the  jury,  though  it  is  his  duty.  I  have  never  denied 
that  twelve  unguarded  jurymen,  new  to  the  courts,  often 
let  the  legal  clique  trepan  them  into  trying  a  case  with- 
out studying  the  written  issues.     But  ignorant  persons 


HAKG   IN   HASTE,    REPENT   AT   LEISUBE.       323 

can  only  forego  their  own  rights.  Their  ignorance  does 
not  forfeit  the  rights  of  the  informed.  What  we  have 
to  do  with  is  a  jury  which  acted  on  their  rights  and  their 
duty.  They  were  just  enough,  wise  enough,  and  wary 
enough,  to  demand,  at  a  critical  period  of  the  trial,  a  copy 
of  the  very  words  of  the  Crown  upon  which,  and  not 
upon  the  judge's  words,  they  had  to  say,  "  Guilty  or  not 
Guilty."  The  judge  put  off  this  their  just  and  proper 
demand,  and  gave  a  reason  which,  weighed  against  the 
wise  and  proper  reasons  of  the  jury  and  against  their 
constitutional  right,  sounds  almost  like  mere  levity.  By 
so  doing,  he  left  them  to  giv^e  their  verdict  on  his  own 
spoken  words  alone,  and  not  on  the  written  words  of 
his  Sovereign  and  theirs.  This  is  the  case.  I  think  it 
is  without  precedent  and  vitiates  the  proceedings.  If 
there  is  a  precedent,  however,  it  will  be  found  and 
quoted.  But  the  country  will 'expect  it  to  be  a  prece- 
dent that  fits  the  case,  without  shuffling  or  equivocation, 
and  meantime  I  hope  the  execution  will  not  be  hurried, 
but  time  given  for  the  country  and  the  Home  Secretary 
to  consider  this  fatal  blot  on  the  proceedings.  Indeed, 
the  matter  ought  to  be  noticed  in  Parliament,  especially 
in  the  House  of  Commons. 

I  am,  Sir,  your  faithful  servant, 

CHARLES   EEADE. 


THIRD   LETTER. 

October  3rd,  1877. 

Sir,  —  Mr.  Abbott  says  the  author  of  "  It  is  Never  too 

Late  to  Mend,"  is  soft-hearted.     Not  a  bit  of  it.     He  is 

only  harder-headed  than  certain  Englishmen.     He  proved 

in  the  story  cited  above  that  the  honest  man  who  kills 


324  READIANA. 

a  thief  in  prison  contrary  to  law  is  a  greater  criminal 
than  the  thief.  That  was  logic ;  not  compassion.  Mr. 
Abbott  now  reminds  us  that  pettifogging  judges,  looking 
too  closely  into  indictments,  have  quashed  them  on 
trumpery  grounds  of  law,  in  spite  of  evidence.  This  is 
notorious.  But  what  is  the  inference  ?  are  the  judges 
not  to  be  allowed  a  copy  of  the  indictment  ?  He  has 
proved  that,  or  he  has  proved  nothing ;  for  no  jury  ever 
defeated  justice  with  a  quibble  on  the  indictment.  In 
spite  of  these  occasional  abuses,  constitutional  rights 
must  not  be  tampered  with.  A  judge  is  as  much  enti- 
tled to  a  copy  of  the  indictment  as  even  the  jury  are, 
who  have  to  try  the  issues.  What  we  have  to  do  with 
is  a  new  thing  —  the  separate  indictments  of  four  per- 
sons, submitted  to  the  judge,  but  not  seen  by  the  jury, 
though  they  asked  for  them,  and  the  jury  delivering  a 
sort  of  lump  verdict  on  unseen  indictments,  in  which, 
perhaps,  the  Crown  did  not  lump  four  very  different 
cases  in  one  without  any  discriminating  words  whatever. 
Who  knows  ?  The  indictments  are  still  suppressed. 
Another  of  your  correspondents  draws  me  out  by  mali- 
cious misinterpretation.  He  puts  violent  and  cruel 
words  into  my  mouth,  and  is  reckless  enough,  with  my 
sober  lines  before  him,  to  pretend  that  I  compare  Mr. 
Justice  Hawkins  to  Judge  Jeffries.  Of  course  such 
unscrupulous  people  can  compel  a  man  to  notice  them. 
The  learned  judge  has  been  my  counsel,  and  I  have 
profited  by  his  abilities.  I  was  never  so  unfortunate  as 
to  have  him  against  me,  in  court.  I  hope  I  never  shall. 
The  jury  asked  by  word  of  mouth  for  the  indictment. 
He  replied,  without  much  reflection,  by  word  of  mouth. 
His  reply  was  unfortunate,  as  many  a  hasty  reply  of  my 
own  has  been,  and,  as  its  effect  was  to  deprive  the  jury 


HANG    IN    HASTE,    REPENT    AT    LEISURE.       325 

of  their  constitutional  rights*  I  think  it  vitiates  the  pro- 
ceedings. As  to  the  merits  of  the  case,  is  it  fair  of  any 
man  to  tell  the  public  what  I  think  when  I  myself  have 
been  so  careful  not  to  rush  hastily  into  that  question  ? 
As  it  happens,  I  approve  some  things  in  the  learned 
judge's  summing-up  in  spite  of  the  objection  taken  to 
those  particulars  by  others.  It  is  only  in  one  part  of 
the  subject  I  do  not  at  present  agree  with  him.  Even 
then,  I  desire  to  think  well  before  I  write,  for  no  man 
feels  more  than  I  do  the  responsibility  to  God  and  man 
of  every  one  who  uses  the  vast  power  of  a  popular 
journal  in  a  case  of  life  and  death. 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES  READE. 

FOURTH   LETTER. 

October  10th,  1877. 

Sir,  —  When  a  woman  of  property  is  half-starved  by 
people  who  are  eating  her  bread,  and  her  husband,  with 
his  paramour,  lives  but  one  mile  distant,  on  the  money 
of  their  injured  benefactress,  and  the  victim  dies  covered 
with  vermin  and  weighing  about  live  stone,  the  wildfire 
of  indignation  will,  I  hope,  always  run  through  every 
vein  of  the  country,  and  the  judges  share  the  just  wrath 
of  the  gentry  and  of  the  millions  who  work  so  hard  to 
feed  their  own  helpless  charges. 

But  great  wrath,  even  when  just,  is  still  a  fever  of 
the  mind,  and  cannot  discriminate.  Whilst  the  heart 
is  still  hot  with  that  fire  which  has  been  so  truly  called 
"  a  passing  frenzy  "  (irq  brevis  furor'),  the  culpable  ones 
seem  criminal,  the  criminal  ones  seem  monsters,  and 
"  our  great  revenge  has  stomach  for  them  all." 


326  READIANA. 

I,  who  write  these  lines,  am  but  a  man  recovering  fast 
from  a  fever  in  a  nation  which  is  recovering  slowly  but 
surely.  I  recover  fast,  because,  from  my  youth,  I  have 
been  trained  in  a  great  school  to  reason  closely  and  dis- 
criminate keenly,  and  armed  with  Oxford  steel  against 
the  tricks  and  sophistries  of  rhetoric,  against  the  de- 
rangement of  dates  (which  single  artifice  will  turn  true 
facts  into  lies),  against  those  fatal  traps,  equivoques  in 
language,  and  against  all  gaps  in  evidence,  however  small 
they  may  appear  to  the  unwary.  I  grieve  to  say  that  I 
receive  shoals  of  insulting  letters,  telling  me  I  am  a 
Whalleyite  and  a  novelist,  and  so  disqualified.  This 
draws  a  few  unwilling  words  from  me  to  disarm  preju- 
dice. I  declared  against  Orton  in  the  Daily  News  before 
ever  the  Crown  tried  him.  I  then  laid  down  the  scien- 
tific principle  which  governs  his  case,  the  doctrine  of 
multiplied  coincidences ;  and,  though  I  write  novels  at 
one  time,  T  can  write  logic  at  another,  and  when  I  write 
a  novel  I  give  the  public  my  lowest  gifts,  but  I  give 
them  my  highest  when  I  write  in  a  great  journal  upon 
life  and  death  and  justice.  But  the  best  thing  the  pub- 
lic, and  those  who  govern  it,  can  do,  will  be  to  go  by 
things,  not  names,  to  sift  my  arguments  as  closely  as  I 
shall  analyse  the  evidence  and  the  hasty  inferences  in 
the  greatest  judicial  error  of  modern  times. 

The  verdict  against  the  Stauntons  and  Rhodes  is  a 
hodge-podge,  in  which  the  legally  criminal  and  the  le- 
gally culpable  are  confounded,  and  both  sets  of  legal  cul- 
prits are  confounded  with  the  moral  culprits,  who  are 
clear  of  the  case  by  the  law  of  England  and  the  rules  of 
evidence  that  bind  the  Central  Criminal  Court. 

Few  observers  of  mankind  will  deny  me  this,  which, 
indeed,  reads  like  a  truism  :  — 


HANG    IN    HASTE,    REPENT    AT   LEISURE.       327 

Where  A,  B,  and  C,  confound  four  things,  and  D,  on 
the  same  evidence,  distinguishes  them,  it  is  a  thousand 
to  one  that  D  is  right,  and  A,  B,  and  C  are  wrong. 

The  position  becomes  even  stronger  when  we  find  that 
A,  B,  and  C  have  been  subject  to  several  confusing  in- 
fluences. It  may  be  worth  while  to  point  out  the  con- 
fusing processes  that  muddled  the  jury,  of  which  pro- 
cesses some  rise  from  the  habitual  malpractices  of  this 
particular  court,  and  others  from  faults  that  have  been 
imported  into  it  for  this  single  occasion. 

Processes  of  Confusion. 

1.  The  court,  for  its  convenience,  tried  four  dissimilar 
cases  in  the  lump,  and  the  four  prisoners  stood  together 
at  the  bar. 

2.  Being  near  and  dear  to  each  other,  and  involved  in 
one  danger,  they  suffered  and  sympathised  openly. 

3.  Twelve  unguarded  men  looked  on,  and,  deluded  by 
the  senses,  which  are  always  stronger  than  the  judgment 
in  untrained  minds,  said  to  themselves,  "  they  are  all  in 
one  boat."  So  they  were  —  in  one  family  boat,  not  one 
legal  boat.  But  the  family  boat  being  in  a  legal  dock, 
these  good  souls  took  it  for  a  legal  boat  directly. 

4.  The  four  separate  indictments,  with  their  curious 
counts,  would  have  tended  to  cure  this.  But  here  the 
malpractices  of  the  court  came  in  with  another  process 
of  confusion. 

By  the  law  of  England  the  arraignment  of  a  prisoner 
consists  of  three  parts  :  (a)  He  is  called  to  the  bar  by 
his  name  '-,  (b)  the  indictment  is  read  to  him,  every  syl- 
lable of  it ;  (c)  he  is  invited  to  plead  to  the  indictment, 
and  no  other  form  of  words,  and  he  has  a  right  to  plead 


328  READIANA. 

guilty  to  one  count,  and  not  guilty  to  another  count; 
and,  if  he  is  legally  culpable,  but  not  criminal,  it  is  the 
wisest  thing  he  can  do. 

This  being  done  by  the  Clerk  of  Arraigns,  the  paper 
that  Clerk  has  read  from  becomes,  from  the  universal 
practice  of  all  our  courts,  the  property  of  the  jury,  so 
long  as  that  trial  lasts. 

But  the  Clerk  of  Arraigns,  by  a  modern  malpractice, 
broke  this  just  and  necessary  law,  and  the  judge  let 
him.  So  each  prisoner  was  grossly  robbed  of  his  right 
to  admit  one  count  and  deny  another,  and  the  jury  were 
grossly  robbed  of  a  copy  of  the  indictment,  though  the 
mere  preliminary  jury,  whose  responsibility  is  so  much 
less,  had  one  to  study  and  find  a  true  Bill  on ;  and 
though  it  is  not  merely  the  right  but  the  duty  of  the 
jury,  as  laid  down  by  Blackstone  himself  very  clearly, 
to  study  the  indictment  very  closely  and  to  find  "  guilty  " 
on  one  count,  and  "  not  guilty  '^  on  another,  and  to  carry 
discrimination  even  further,  for  they  can  find  guilty  on 
one  half  of  a  divisible  count  and  acquit  upon  the  other. 

5.  Law,  justice,  and  common  sense  having  thus  been 
defied  by  the  Central  Criminal  Court,  and  the  great 
written  instrument  of  discrimination  withheld  from  them 
contrary  to  law,  they  were  manipulated  and  confused  by 
a  rhetorician  on  the  Bench,  who  picked  out  the  highest 
count  and  ignored  the  others,  and  with  gentle  hand  ex- 
tinguished their  one  faint  gleam  of  incipient  discrimina- 
tion, and  left  no  doubt  to  the  jury  in  a  case  crammed 
with  doubts  ;  which  was  unprecedented. 

The  result  corresponded  with  all  these  co-operating 
processes. 

The  judge  laid  down  the  law  that  whoever  has  by  law, 
or  takes  upon  himself,  the  charge  of  a  helpless  person 


HANG    IN   HASTE,    REPENT   AT    LEISURE.       329 

and  does  not  give  her  enough  to  live  upon  is  guilty  of 
murder  by  omission.  He  did  not  say  whoever  has  one- 
fourth  of  the  charge,  for  that  is  not  the  law. 

The  Charge. 

Under  this  ruling,  on  which  I  have  something  to  say 
hereafter,  the  jury  on  the  evidence  contrived  to  see 
four  persons,  all  of  whom  had  either  by  law  or  their  own 
act  "  the  charge  "  of  Harriet  Staunton,  and  all  saw  her 
pine  to  death  and  let  her  pine  to  death. 

Now  let  all  men,  in  whose  minds  the  very  landmarks 
of  truth  are  not  obliterated,  look  on  that  picture  conjured 
up  by  a  jury  under  several  processes  of  confusion  along 
with  this  picture  which  the  evidence  reveals  to  a  dis- 
criminating eye. 

Patrick  Staunton,  a  committer  of  a  crime,  responsible 
for  Harriet  Staunton's  life  by  a  pecuniary  contract  with 
Louis.  He  docks  her  food,  strikes  her,  terrifies  and 
strikes  his  wife  for  interfering,  &c.  The  evidence  sug- 
gests that  if  the  man  had  died  in  1876,  Harriet  Staun- 
ton might  be  alive  now.  He  comes  under  the  judge's 
ruling.  He  had  "  the  charge."  This  is  the  only  com- 
mitter of  them  all.  Yet  the  jury  can  see  nothing  ex- 
ceptional in  his  position.  We  now  step  down  to  a 
much  lower  grade  of  crime. 

The  Mere  Omitters. 

At  the  head  is  Mrs.  Patrick  Staunton,  a  grown-up 
woman,  experienced,  and  no  fool.  Her  neglect  of  Har- 
riet is  prima  facie  barbarous ;  but  it  transpires  that 
there  was  conjugal  influence  and  coercion.     The  woman 


330  READIANA. 

encountered  blows  in  defence  of  the  victim.  The  deter- 
ring effect  of  those  blows,  and  her  pregnancy,  cannot  be 
exactly  estimated  ;  nor  is  it  necessary.  The  law,  already 
disposed  to  assume  conjugal  influence,  except  in  an  in- 
disputable case  of  murder,  is  amply  satisfied  with  the 
admissions  made  on  this  head,  and  she  is  not  a  criminal, 
but  a  culpable  offender.  Two  years'  imprisonment. 
The  next  omitter  is  Clara  Brown.  She  slept  in  the  same 
room  with  the  victim;  allowed  the  vermin  to  accumu- 
late ;  saw  her  sufferings  more  than  Mrs.  P.  Staunton : 
filled  her  own  belly  and  let  her  perish ;  nor  did  she  show 
any  positive  goodness  of  heart,  as  the  elder  woman  did 
once  or  twice.  I  mean  she  never  faced  a  blow  nor  got 
an  angry  word,  and  she  never  told  a  soul  till  the  Crown 
Solicitor  inspired  her  with  higher  sentiments.  On  the 
other  hand,  she  was  young,  inexperienced,  and  stupid ; 
and,  though  she  saw  most  of  the  victim,  never  antici- 
pated her  death,  which  blindness  in  her  rouses  a  suspi- 
cion that  the  whole  set  were  much  greater  fools  and 
smaller  villains  than  they  looked.  We  now  take  a  step 
in  law  which  is  as  wide  as  the  step  down  from  the  one 
committer  to  the  four  omitters.  We  go  out  of  the  house. 
We  don't  even  go  next  door,  but  to  another  house  a  mile 
distant,  where  two  self-indulgent  adulterers  were  hiding 
themselves  from  Harriet  Staunton  and  absorbed  in  adul- 
tery, which  was  made  smooth  by  Patrick's  control  of  the 
injured  wife.  I  never  knew  how  low  the  human  under- 
standing could  sink  till  I  saw  a  jury  who  could  confound 
this  situation  with  that  of  Mrs.  Patrick  Staunton  and 
Clara  Brown,  two  people  living  in  the  house  where  Har- 
riet Staunton  pined  on  the  first  floor.  That  first  floor 
Louis  Staunton  and  Alice  Rhodes  avoided  from  self- 
indulgent  motives,  that  are  out  of  the  case.     Of  these 


HANG   rsr   HASTE,    EEPENT   AT   LEISURE.       331 

two  persons,  the  law  never  had  any  hold  on  Ehodes.  A 
mistress  living  in  one  house  is  not  bound  to  provide  food 
for  a  wife  living  in  another.  Rhodes  is  out  of  the  case. 
Louis  Staunton,  until  some  day  in  August,  1876,  was 
deep  in  the  case.  But  the  judge,  in  order  to  make  hos- 
tile comments  on  his  niggardliness,  let  in  as  evidence 
that  he  made  a  contract  with  Patrick  Staunton  of  this 
kind  —  Patrick  was  to  receive  Harriet  in  his  own  house, 
and  receive  twenty  shillings  per  week.  Louis  was  a 
mean  scoundrel  to  offer  so  small  a  sum,  but  a  rustic 
labourer  and  eight  children  live  on  less.  It  crushes  the 
charge  of  murder  as  completely  as  twenty  pounds  a  week 
would.  It  is  a  contract  in  which  both  contracting  parties 
contemplated,  not  the  death,  but  the  indefinite  life  of 
Harriet  Staunton.  Its  very  niggardliness  proves  that  on 
behalf  of  Louis  Staunton.  A  man  can  transfer  his  legal 
responsibility.  It  is  done  daily.  The  legal  responsi- 
bility of  Louis  Staunton  passed  by  that  pecuniary  con- 
tract to  Patrick  as  much  as  did  the  responsibility  of  that 
mother,  who  handed  her  child  for  five  shillings  a  week 
to  a  baby-farmer,  which  baby-farmer  neglected  the  child 
till  it  died  a  bag  of  bones,  and  was  tried  by  Sir  James 
Hawkins  two  days  after  the  Stauntons.  (  See  The  Daily 
Telegraph,  Oct.  1.)  The  attempts  made  to  drag  Rhodes 
into  the  case  at  all,  and  to  drag  Louis  back  into  it 
after  admission  of  that  contract,  are  pure  sophistry  and 
equivocation,  as  I  shall  show  in  the  proper  place. 
Meantime  here  is  the  true  picture. 

1.  Committer  and  criminal. 

2.  Culpable  emitters  ;  one  condemned  to  die,  one  walk- 
ing about  London. 

3.  and  4.  Two  vile  moral  omitters  clear  of  the  crime, 
but  relieved  by  the  lawyers  of  all  their  ill-gotten  money, 


332  READIANA. 

defended  with  admirable  speeches,  but  worse  defended 
on  the  evidence  than  they  could  have  defended  them- 
selves, and  condemned  to  die. 

The  blunder  has  been  brought  about  partly  by  the 
recent  malpractices,  and  the  inherent  defects,  of  the 
Central  Criminal  Court,  whose  system  is  so  faulty  that 
it  never  gets  below  the  surface  of  a  case,  and  is  the 
worst  instrument  for  the  discovery  of  truth  in  Europe ; 
and  partly  from  special  vices  and  errors,  that  found 
their  way  into  the  case,  and  surprise  the  whole  legal 
profession,  so  opposed  are  they  to  precedent,  and  to  the 
best  traditions,  and  most  sober  habits,  of  the  court. 
These  it  will  be  my  next  duty  to  analyse  closely,  but  I 
think  I  can  hit  upon  a  briefer  method  than  I  have  been 
able  to  pursue  in  this  letter. 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES   READE. 

FIFTH   LETTER. 

October  12th,  1877. 

Sir,  —  Were  I,  who  denounce  an  indiscriminating 
verdict  upon  four  immoral  egotists,  to  endorse  the  indis- 
criminating censure  levelled  at  the  judge  who  tried  the 
case,  I  should  exceed  the  error  I  condemn,  for  I  should 
be  morally  unjust  to  the  good,  he  has  only  been  legally 
unjust  to  a  portion  of  the  bad. 

I  declare  then,  that  he  had  no  power  to  prevent  one 
of  the  omitters  from  giving  evidence  against  the  others, 
whose  mouths  were  closed  by  an  iniquity  of  the  law 
which  is  itself  doomed  to  death ;  nor  had  he  any  right 
to  disparage  her  whole  evidence,  but  only  to  reject 
one  part  and  sift  the  rest  with   keen   suspicion;    and, 


HANG   IN   HASTE,    REPENT   AT   LEISURE.      333 

when  he  directed  the  jury  to  prefer  the  opinion  of  Doc- 
tors who  had  seen  the  body,  to  that  of  Doctors  who  had 
not,  and  bade  the  jury  observe  the  ugly  circumstance 
that  Harman,  the  doctor  who  had  watched  the  post- 
mortem examination  on  behalf  of  the  defendants,  was 
not  called  for  the  defence,  he  did  his  duty  to  the  jury, 
guided  by  innumerable  precedents,  which  not  only  justi- 
fied, but  bound  him.  He  did  not  make  the  rules  of  evi- 
dence :  he  found  the  rules  of  evidence,  and  very  wise 
they  are.  In  a  word,  I  will  not  wilfully  object  to  any- 
thing but  what  defies  precedent,  and  the  habits  of  our 
other  judges,  and  every  one  of  their  predecessors,  whose 
name  their  country  honours. 

1.  The  judge  laid  down  the  law  thus,  as  affecting  the 
only  count  of  a  suppressed  indictment  which  he  permit- 
ted the  jury  to  try ;  "  every  person  who  is  under  a  legal 
duty,  whether  such  duty  be  imposed  by  the 'law,  or  im- 
posed by  contract,  or  by  the  act  of  taking  charge,  wrong- 
fully, or  otherwise,  of  another  person,  to  provide  the 
necessaries  of  life,  every  such  person  is  criminally  re- 
sponsible for  the  culpable  neglect  of  that  duty.  And  if 
the  person  so  neglected,  is,  from  age,  insanity,  health,  or 
any  other  cause,  unable  to  take  care  of  himself,  and  by 
reason  of  that  neglect,  death  ensues,  the  crime  is  mur- 
der." 

Now  this  is  the  law  if  you  don't  stretch  it,  and  try  to 
catch  more  fish  than  the  law  allows.  It  is  the  law  as  it 
lies  in  the  Text-Books,  and  is  there  applied  to  a  single 
person,  having  the  sole  legal  charge. 

But  as  regards  these  four  offenders  it  is  too  broad  and 
loose,  and  is  not  the  law  of  England  as  appears  in  the 
cases  to  which  those  very  text-books  refer,  and  in  fifty 
other  cases,  well  known,  though  not  reported  by  lawyers, 


334  READIANA. 

but  only  word  for  word  by  the  newspapers.  These  are 
shunned  by  the  lawyers ;  they  are  invaluable ;  but  then 
they  are  not  published  and  sold  by  that  sacred  clique. 

However,  the  cases  of  criminal  omission,  though  piti- 
ably reduced  in  number  by  that  childish  prejudice,  are, 
I  think,  fatal  to  this  new  theory  of  criminal  responsi- 
bility in  the  highest  degree  attaching  to  persons  who 
have  not  the  sole  charge  in  law  of  the  murdered  person. 

What  will  my  readers  think,  and  what  will  the  Home 
Secretary  think,  when  I  tell  him  that  to  find  in  the 
books  a  verdict  of  murder  by  omission  I  must  go  back 
to  ninety-seven  years  —  to  a  time  when  jurymen  were  so 
used  to  shed  blood  like  water  by  statute  law  that  they 
naturally  applied  even  the  common  law  with  a  severity 
that  is  now  out  of  date. 

I,  who  with  these  eyes  have  seen  a  boy  of  eighteen 
hapged  for  stealing  a  horse,  though  the  jury  could  have 
saved  him,  and  the  judge  could  have  saved  him  with  a 
word,  am  not  disposed  to  rate  beyond  its  value  the  case 
of  "  Rex  V.  Squires,"  on  which  Sir  J.  Hawkins,  I  think, 
relies,  still  less  to  stretch  it  ad  infinitum^  where  the  jury 
that  hanged  him  restricted  it  so  closely. 

In  1790  the  Crown  indicted  Squires  and  his  wife  for 
murder.  They  had  starved  a  young  apprentice,  and 
beaten  him  cruelly.  The  wife,  as  to  the  beating,  could 
not  by  law  prove  conjugal  influence,  for  she  had  beaten 
the  boy  in  her  husband's  absence,  which  bars  that  plea. 
The  post-mortem,  however,  revealed  starvation,  and  not 
the  boy's  wounds,  to  be  the  cause  of  death.  The  jury 
found  Squires  guilty  of  murder ;  but  they  held  that  Mrs. 
Squires  had  not  in  this,  as  she  had  in  the  blows,  acted 
independently  of  her  husband.  She  had  not  intercepted 
any  food  her  husband  had  given  her  for  the  boy. 


HANG   IN    HASTE,    REPENT   AT    LEISURE.       335 

If  this  case  is  to  be  acted  on  in  our  day,  at  least  we 
should  not  garble,  and  take  the  sanguinary  half.  The 
jury  acquitted  Mrs.  Squires,  a  far  worse  woman  than 
Mrs.  P.  Staunton,  and  they  acquitted  her  logically.  In 
a  case  of  omission  they  could  not  convict  the  husband 
capitally  but  by  loading  him  with  the  whole  charge,  and 
the  whole  criminality  of  a  joint  act.  Does  this  case, 
looked  into  and  understood,  support  the  new  theory  of 
criminal  responsibility,  infinitely  divisible,  without  dimi- 
nution of  guilt. 

A  leading  case  of  our  own  day,  and  therefore  a  better 
guide  for  us,  is  "  The  Queen  v.  Bubb  and  Hook."  Eliza- 
beth Bubb,  was  a  widow  with  two  children,  and  sister  to 
Richard  Hook's  wife,  deceased.  Hook  invited  her  into 
his  house,  and  gave  her  money  to  keep  the  family.  She 
fed  and  clothed  her  own  family,  and  half  starved  the 
poor  dead  sister's.  She  carried  her  cruelty  so  far  that 
the  neighbours  remonstrated  often,  but  Hook  looked 
calmly  on,  and  did  not  mind.  By  steady  degrees  this 
fiendish  woman  murdered  Hook's  youngest  child  by  star- 
vation and  cold.  She  was  indicted  for  murder.  The 
jury  did  not  conceal  their  horror,  but  they  used  their 
right,  and  reduced  the  crime  to  manslaughter  ;  but,  as 
that  verdict  opens  the  door  to  lenient  sentences,  they 
guarded  the  judge  in  a  way  that  shows  how  wise  twelve 
plain  men  can  be  when  each  of  them  thinks  for  himself. 
They  brought  it  in  "  aggravated  manslaughter."  Hook 
was  tried  for  manslaughter  at  the  same  assize.  As  he 
had  supplied  Bubb  with  means,  there  was  nothing  against 
him  but  his  apathy  and  neglect  of  his  pining  child,  and 
his  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  remonstrances.  It  was  left  to 
the  jury  to  decide  whether  this  was  culpable  neglect,  or 
stupid  neglect  in  a  father  —  not  an  outsider,  like  Ehodes. 


336  READIANA. 

They  decided  for  stupid  neglect,  and  acquitted  Hook. 
Here  is  the  same  principle.  They  were  resolved  to  put 
the  saddle  on  the  right  horse,  and  not  upon  two  horses. 
Will  my  readers  pause,  and  compare  the  guilt  of  the 
heartless,  relentless  fiend  Bubb  —  sole  instigator,  sole 
executor  of  a  deadly  deed,  in  spite  of  remonstrances  — 
with  the  case  of  Mrs.  Patrick  Staunton,  a  wife,  and  under 
influence,  who  in  her  moments  of  conscience  resisted  the 
cruelty,  and  was  overpowered. 

If  you  divide  an  apple  into  four  pieces,  you  have  four 
pieces,  but  not  four  apples.  If,  in  a  case  of  omission, 
you  could  really  divide  the  legal  charge,  and  the  highest 
criminal  responsibility,  the  effect  would  not  be  what  Sir 
J.  Hawkins  told  the  jury  the  effect  would  be  —  to  sub- 
divide and  fritter  away  the  criminal  responsibility  till  it 
should  escape  the  lash  of  the  law,  and  meet  no  punish- 
ment but  public  reprobation. 

Example  —  two  Welsh  parents  had  an  imbecile  girl, 
who  professed  sanctity  and  fasting,  and  the  old  people 
made  their  money  out  of  her.  Incredulous  doctors  de- 
manded a  test.  Parents  consented.  Doctors  watched 
night  and  day,  and  went  at  the  first  plunge  much  deeper 
than  the  Stauntons  ;  for  they  stopped  all  supplies  dead 
short.  They  killed  her  quick  amongst  them.  The  doc- 
tors sat  round  her  bed  and  saw  the  lamp  of  life  burn  out 
in  eight  days.  Vulgar  curiosity  does  not  excuse  delib- 
erate murder.  See  now  if  by  any  quibbling  or  evasion 
the  conduct  of  the  parents  can  be  taken  out  of  murder  — 
as  the  law  was  laid  down  for  the  Stauntons,  see  above  — 
or  the  doctors  cleared  of  manslaughter.  Clean  stoppage 
of  food  is  the  short  cut  to  murder,  with  the  goal  in  sight 
all  the  way. 

Insufficient   supply   of   food   is   an  uncertain  road  to 


HANG    IN    HASTE,    EEPENT   AT   LEISURE.       337 

manslaughter.  The  victim  may  get  used  to  it.  Luigi 
Cornaro  achieved  a  vast  longevity  by  no  other  means 
than  insufficient  nutriment  arrived  at  by  degrees.  If 
divided  responsibility  leaves  seven  people  equally  re- 
sponsible, why  were  not  those  parents  and  doctors  all 
hung? 

2.  "Imposed  by  Law  or  Imposed  by  Contract." 

True.  But  throughout  this  case  he  withheld  from  the 
jury  that  when  the  law  and  lawful  contract  are  opposed, 
contract  prevails.  In  order  to  submit  to  the  jury  some 
just  comments  on  the  niggardly  wretch,  Louis  Staunton, 
and  the  205.  he  agreed  to  pay  Patrick  to  house  and  board 
his  wife,  he  let  in  the  paltry  contract  as  evidence  ;  yet 
he  withheld  from  the  jury  the  immediate  legal  effect  of 
the  contract.  This  was  to  give  Patrick  the  sole  charge 
of  the  wife,  and  the  sole  criminal  responsibility  of  the 
highest  degree. 

The  legal  responsibility  passed  clean  out  of  Louis  by 
passing  into  Patrick.  Had  Louis  failed  to  pay  weekly, 
Patrick  could  have  sued  him. 

Whether  a  responsibility  originally  so  sacred  as  a  hus- 
band's could  not  be  revived  partially,  and  in  a  lower 
form,  by  Louis  constantly  visiting  his  wife  and  actually 
seeing  her  pine  away,  and  whether  this  would  not  make 
him  guilty  of  manslaughter  is  another  matter,  and  one  I 
shall  deal  with  under  another  head ;  but  I  complain  that 
the  judge  withheld  his  legal  knowledge  from  the  jury 
whenever  it  could  serve  a  prisoner,  of  which  this  is  one 
example. 

3.  —  Another  is  his  dead  silence  as  to  Mrs.  P.  Staun- 
ton's legal  position  as  a  wife,  and  the  influence  of  her 
husband  upon  her  as  well  as  on  Rhodes  —  an  influence 


338  EE  A  DIANA. 

the  law  is  not  unwilling  to  assume,  though  of  course  it 
can  be  rebutted,  as  when  Mrs.  Manning  was  proved  to 
be  the  instigator  of  a  joint  crime.  But  here  the  husband 
had  by  contract  the  sole  legal  charge,like  Squires  in  1790. 

4.  —  Illegal  and  improper  evidence  was  admitted,  such 
as  no  prisoner  with  his  mouth  closed  has  ever  been 
assassinated  by  in  my  time.  Clara  Brown  was  allowed 
to  depose  to  the  existence  of  a  letter  written  by  Louis 
Staunton  to  Alice  Ehodes  in  August,  1876.  That  was 
allowable,  for  Rhodes  admitted  having  received  and  lost 
a  letter.  But  now  comes  the  legal  wrong.  She  was 
allowed  to  own  herself  a  thief  as  regarded  that  particu- 
lar letter,  and  also  what  the  old  judges  called  "  a  spolia- 
tor of  evidence." 

As  regarded  that  one  letter,  I  mean  she  was  allowed 
to  depose  that  she  had  burnt  it  wilfully,  and  with  her 
own  hand,  and  yet  she  was  permitted  to  take  advantage 
of  her  own  suppression  of  the  real  letter,  to  give  by 
memory  or  imagination  just  so  many  words  as  the  Crown 
Solicitor,  who  got  up  the  case,  thought  might  suffice  to 
hang  Louis  Staunton  by  an  equivocation  pointing  to 
murder,  and  an  admission  of  long  criminal  intimacy, 
to  prove  adultery  before  as  well  as  after  marriage. 
"  Spoliation  of  evidence "  does  not  figure  much  in  the 
text-books.  You  must  go  wide  and  deep  to  find  the  hun- 
dreds of  cases  that  lie  behind  all  the  older  maxims  of 
law.  "  Assume  everything  to  the  discredit  of  a  spoliator 
of  evidence"  is  the  maxim,  and  the  person  who  destroys 
any  written  document  divining  its  importance  is  certainly 
a  spoliator  of  evidence.  But  if  the  good,  though  almost 
obsolete,  phrase  be  objected  to,  I  will  resign  it,  and  stick 
to  the  substance.  Why,  even  at  Nisi  Prius,  if  a  witness, 
to  decide  a  case,  swore  he  received  a  letter  from  a  party, 


HANG   IN    HASTE,    REPENT   AT   LEISURE.       339 

who  could  not  be  put  in  the  box,  and  proved  that  he 
really  had  received  a  letter  from  that  person  of  some 
kind  or  other,  would  he  be  allowed  to  say  "  I  burned  the 
letter,  seeing  its  importance  ;  the  writer  cannot  he  called 
to  contradict  me,  so  I  remember  enough  of  the  contents  to 
tvin  this  verdict,  £50,000,  for  the  parti/  who  puts  me  in 
the  box  "  —  would  not  the  judge  hesitate  to  let  the  jury's 
mind  be  prejudiced  by  hearing  this  witness's  garbled 
quotations  ?  If  another  hand  had  burned  it,  well  and 
good ;  but  surely  not  when  he  had  burned  it  himself,  and 
so  put  the  court  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  partial  quota- 
tion and  misquotation.  I  am  of  opinion,  subject  to  the 
decision  of  the  judges  —  and  it  is  quite  time  they  sat  to 
review  criminal  cases  —  that  this  sham  reproduction  of 
a  selected  and  garbled  part  of  a  written  letter  the  wit- 
ness had  wilfully  destroyed  was  legally  inadmissible 
against  two  prisoners  whose  mouths  were  sealed. 

I  shall  show  in  my  next  that  this  violation,  not  of 
some  pedantic  rule  of  evidence,  but  of  its  very  funda- 
mental principles,  lets  a  whole  vein  of  romantic  error 
into  the  case,  and  shall  expose  generally  the  false  system 
by  which  the  order  of  the  facts  was  dislocated  and  the 
facts  falsified.  Yours  faithfully, 

CHAKLES   READE. 

I  beg  to  acknowledge  with  thanks  some  insulting  let- 
ters from  people  who  don't  sign  their  names,  and  some 
encouraging  ones  from  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  do. 

SIXTH   LETTER. 

October  ISth,  1877. 

Sir,  —  In  reply  to  reasonable  comments  let  me  say  I 
have  not  put  forward  that  branch  of  law  which  concerns 


340  READIANA. 

the  aiding  and  abetting  any  kind  of  murder,  whether  by 
commission  or  omission,  because  the  judge  did  not  lay 
that  down  to  the  jury,  and  he  was  bound  to  do  so  if  that 
was  the  law  he  relied  on. 

He  never  treated  Louis  Staunton  as  an  "  accessory 
before  the  fact,"  which  under  this  head  of  law  was  the 
only  cap  that  could  be  made  to  fit  him.  He  never  told 
the  jury  what  precise  evidence  the  law  demands  against 
a  man  who  has  made  a  niggardly  contract  contemplating, 
by  its  very  niggardliness,  the  indefinite  life  of  the  victim, 
ere  a  jury  is  to  pronounce  that  he  did  "procure,  counsel, 
command  and  abet "  the  murder  of  that  person. 

Of  course  no  lawyer  will  pretend  that  a  man  living  out 
of  the  house  of  murder  can  be  accessory  at  the  fact,  or 
what  the  text-books  call  "  a  principal  in  the  first  de- 
gree ; "  nor  will  any  lawyer  deny  that  if  he  lives  out  of 
the  house,  but  procures,  counsels,  commands,  or  abets  the 
murder,  beyond  doiiht,  he  can  be  an  accessory  before  the 
fact,  or  a  principal  in  the  second  degree.  But  there  must 
be  high  evidence  and  direct  evidence,  and  if  spoken  or 
written  words  are  relied  on  they  must  be  addressed  to 
the  very  person  who  does  the  murder,  and  must  be  un- 
equivocal. A  doubtful  phrase  addressed  to  Rhodes, 
who  took  no  part  in  the  murder,  is  not  at  all  the  kind 
of  evidence  required  by  all  the  books  and  all  the  cases. 
See  the  word  "  accessory "  in  any  text-book  or  report 
whatever. 

The  Facts. 

In  our  Criminal  Court,  where  the  prisoners,  the  only 
people  who  really  know  the  ins  and  outs  of  the  case,  are 
not  allowed  to  open  their  lips,  and  correct  any  of  the 
shallow  guesswork  that  is  going  on  about  them  in  their 


HANG   IN   HASTE,    EEPENT   AT   LEISURE.       341 

astonished  ears,  one  great  abuse  like  that  I  denounced  in 
my  last  letter  is  sure  to  let  in  many  more.  Clara  Brown, 
the  one  witness  on  whom  the  case  for  the  Crown  really 
depends,  was  allowed  by  the  judge  to  swear  she  had  de- 
stroyed a  letter,  and  yet  to  cite  so  much  of  it,  correctly 
or  incorrectly,  as  fitted  the  two  horns  of  the  prosecution. 
That  abuse  led  at  once  to  another.  This  model  witness 
was  allowed  another  privilege  the  rules  of  evidence  do 
not  grant  —  viz.,  to  argue  the  case.  For  this  the  de- 
fendants are  indebted  to  their  counsel. 

He  asked  whether  she  understood  the  sentence  about 
Harriet  being  "  out  of  the  way  "  to  refer  to  her  death. 
To  this  question  she  replied  "  Yes." 

French  counsel  surprised  by  a  prosecution  would  im- 
mediately have  had  a  personal  conference  with  the  pris- 
oners, and  would  have  asked  the  girl  questions  that  would 
have  greatly  benefited  the  prisoners.  The  jury,  hearing 
^  witness  swear  to  an  interpretation  of  a  doubtful  phrase, 
were  not  aware  this  was  not  evidence,  and  ought  severely 
to  be  rejected  from  their  minds.  So  one  abuse  led  to 
another,  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this  imaginary 
letter  with  the  witness's  black-hearted  interpretation  is 
the  rope  that  is  to  hang  Louis  Staunton. 

Well,  such  a  rope  of  sand  has  never  hung  an  English- 
man in  my  day.  It  is  pitiable  to  see  how  little,  if  anj^- 
thing,  that  can  even  by  courtesy  be  called  mental  power, 
was  brought  to  bear  by  twelve  men  of  the  world  on  this 
quotation  of  a  letter  without  its  contents,  one  of  the 
stalest  frauds  in  the  world  and  also  in  literature  of  every 
kind,  especially  controversial  theology. 

Permit  me  to  test  this  imaginary  extract  from  what 
was  proved,  I  think,  to  be  a  real  letter,  by  one  or  two 
sure  methods  of  which  I  am  not  the  inventor. 


342  READTANA. 

Have  those  twelve  gentlemen  counted  the  nnmher  of 
words  a  young  servant  girl  swore  she  had  remembered  in 
their  exact  order  for  nine  months  or  more,  though  she 
had  burned  the  letter,  and  the  subject  had  never  been 
recalled  to  her  mind  till  she  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
prosecution  ? 

The  words  are  sixty-two  in  number. 

"  My  own  darling,  —  I  was  very  sorry  to  see  you  cry 
when  I  left  you.  It  seems  as  though  it  never  must  be, 
but  there  will  be  a  time  when  Harriet  will  be  out  of  the 
way,  and  we  shall  be  happy  together.  Dear  Alice,  you 
must  know  how  I  love  you  by  this  time.  We  have  been 
together  two  years  now." 

Now,  sir,  even  if  those  fatal  words  about  a  time  when 
Harriet  will  be  out  of  the  way  were  ever  written  without 
some  explanatory  context,  I  think  the  jury  ought  to  have 
been  throughout  solemnly  warned  and  guarded  against 
the  illogical  interpretation  of  them.  The  just  rule  of  in- 
terpretation is  that  you  should  always  prefer  a  literal  to 
a  vague  or  metaphorical  interpretation.  The  words  "  out 
of  the  way  "  mean  out  of  the  way  ;  they  don't  mean  dead. 
A  man  can  say  "dead,"  and  if  Khodes  was  projecting 
murder  with  him,  why  should  he  not  have  said  so  ? 

The  next  rule  is,  that  you  prefer  the  interpretation 
which  the  writer  himself  confesses  by  his  own  act,  and 
the  next  is,  that  you  prefer  the  interpretation  that  is  first 
fulfilled  in  order  of  time.  Now,  it  was  Louis,  the  writer 
of  the  words,  who  took  a  farm  soon  after,  settled  Harriet 
with  Patrick,  and  so  got  her  out  of  the  way,  and  lived 
in  smooth  adultery  with  Rhodes,  whereas  it  was  other 
people  who  killed  Harriet  Staunton,  and  nine  months 
afterwards.  But  I  shall  now  show  the  extract  as  sworn 
to  was  never  written. 


HANG   IN   HASTE,    REPEXT   AT    LEISURE.       343 

1st  objection.  —  It  is  too  long,  and  too  short,  which  two 
traits  can  never  meet  in  a  genuine  extract. 

A.  Too  long  for  a  servant  girl  to  remember,  word  for 
word,  nine  months  after  hearing  it. 

B.  Too  short.  Louis  Staunton  was  not  preparing  his 
own  prosecution.  It  was  not  on  the  cards  of  mere  acci- 
dent that  he  should  furnish  in  sixty-two  words  two 
equivocal  expressions  —  one  establishing  a  long  adulter- 
ous intercourse  of  which  there  is  no  corroborative  proof, 
but  the  reverse,  and  another  quibble  projecting  distant 
murder,  of  which  there  is  no  corroborative  proof,  since 
Harriet  was  well  used  for  months  after. 

2.  The  line  reminding  her  she  had  been  his  mistress 
for  two  years  is  worded  by  a  woman,  and  not  by  Staunton 
or  any  man.  Decent  women  like  Clara  Brown  have  a 
delicate  vocabulary  unknown  to  men.  "  We  have  been  to- 
gether," which  means  everything  the  prosecution  wanted, 
but  says  nothing  at  all,  is  a  woman's  word  for  criminal 
connection. 

3.  The  statement  itself  is  not  true,  and  from  that  you 
must  argue  backward  against  the  genuineness  of  the  quo- 
tation, since  he  would  not  say  this  to  a  girl  who  knew 
better.* 

4.  The  witness  could  remember  nothing  but  her  lesson : 
sixty-two  consecutive  words,  all  neat  and  telling,  and 
meeting  the  two  great  views  of  the  prosecution;  but, 
that  done,  a  blank  —  a  total  blank ;  not  six  consecutive 
words.  This  is  barefaced.  Daniel  Defoe  would  have 
managed  better.  He  would  have  armed  the  witness  with 
ten  consecutive  words  on  some  matter  quite  foreign  to  the 
objects  of  the  prosecution.     The  quotation  is  fabricated. 

*  Since  this  letter  was  written,  it  has  been  proved  to  be  a  falsehood.  The 
criminal  connection  was  hardly  one  year  old. 


344  READIANA. 

The  process  has  nothing  exceptional  in  it,  nor  is  there 
any  one  to  bhime,  except  the  Court,  for  letting  in  parole 
evidence  about  a  written  document  destroyed  by  the 
witness  herself. 

Allow  10,000  such  witnesses,  and,  if  the  case  is  ably 
prepared,  you  must,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  have 
10,000  inaccurate  quotations,  all  leaning  towards  the  side 
that  calls  the  witness. 

The  people  who  get  up  a  prosecution  have  but  one  way 
of  dealing  with  such  a  witness.  She  comes  to  them  re- 
membering a  word  here  or  there.  She  is  advised  to  speak 
the  truth  and  take  time.  But,  as  the  conference  pro- 
ceeds, she  is  asked  whether  she  happens  to  remember 
anything  of  such  a  kind  ?  She  is  very  ductile,  and  forces 
her  memory  a  bit  in  the  direction  she  instinctively  sees 
is  desired.  The  very  person  who  is  examining  her  with 
an  ex  parte  view  does  not  see  that  she  is  so  wax-like  as 
she  is. 

Add  a  small  grain  of  self-deception  on  both  sides,  and 
a  mixture  of  truth  and  falsehood  comes  into  the  unwary 
and  most  inconsistent  court,  which  stops  Louis  Staunton's 
mouth,  yet  lets  in  a  worse  kind  of  evidence  than  the  pris- 
oner's own,  viz.,  this  horrible  hodge-podge  of  memory, 
imagination,  and  prompting,  which,  in  the  very  nature  of 
things  J  and  hy  the  mere  infirmity  of  the  human  mind, 
must  be  a  lie. 

That  a  man  should  die  only  because  he  is  tried  in 
England.  Bring  your  minds  to  bear  on  this,  my  country- 
men. If  an  ignorant  man,  like  this  Staunton,  is  defend- 
ant in  a  suit  for  fifty-one  pounds,  he  can  go  into  the 
witness  box  and  explain  all  the  errors  of  the  plaintiff,  if 
any ;  but  if  he  is  tried  for  his  life,  which  is  dearer  to 
every  man  than  all  the  money  in  the  world,  he  is  not 


HAXG   IX    HASTE,    REPENT    AT    LEISURE.       345 

allowed  to  say  one  word  to  the  jury,  if  he  has  counsel. 
Now,  in  France  he  may  speak  after  his  counsel  have 
done  muddling  his  case,  but  here  with  heartless  mockery, 
when  Ignorance  all  round  has  hanged  him,  he  is  allowed 
to  speak  —  To  whom  ?  To  the  judge.  On  what  ?  The 
nice  quibbles  of  the  law,  but  not  on  facts  or  motives  — 
that  being  the  one  thing  he  can  never  do,  and  this  being 
the  thing  he  could  generally  do,  and  flood  the  groping 
Court  with  light  especially  as  to  his  true  motives  and  the 
extenuating  circumstances  of  his  case.  By  this  system 
the  blood-thirsty  murderer,  who  chooses  his  time,  and 
slays  swiftly  in  the  dark,  gains  an  advantage  he  cannot 
have  in  the  wiser  Courts  of  Europe.  But  God  help  the 
malefactor  who  is  not  an  habitual  criminal,  or  one  of  the 
deepest  dye,  but  a  mixed  sinner,  who  has  glided  from 
folly  into  sin,  and  from  sin  into  his  first  crime,  and  who 
has  been  fool  as  well  as  villain.  His  mouth  is  closed, 
and  all  the  extenuating  circumstances  that  mouth  could 
always  reveal  are  hidden  with  it,  or,  as  in  this  case, 
grossly  and  foully  perverted  into  aggravating  circum- 
stances. 

This  is  very  unfair.  The  Nation  will  see  it  some  day. 
At  present  what  is  to  be  done  ?  After  all,  thank  God, 
it  is  a  free  country,  and  one  in  which  bad  law  is  some- 
times corrected  by  just  men. 

To  all  such  I  appeal  against  the  rope  of  sand  I  have 
had  to  untwist  in  this  letter. 

The  Post  has  enabled  me  to  do  something  more :  to 
resist  foul  play  and  garbled  quotations  and  those  most 
dangerous  of  all  lies,  equivoques  in  language,  such  as 
"  Harriet  out  of  the  way,"  the  very  kind  of  lies  Holy 
Writ  ascribes  to  Satan,  and  the  great  poets  of  every  age 
have  described  as  hellish,  which  they  are. 


M6  READTANA. 

I  resolved  to  give  Louis  Staunton,  what  that  den  of 
iniquit}'  and  imbecility,  the  Central  Criminal  Court,  did 
not  give  him,  one  little  chance  of  untwisting  that  rope 
of  sand,  although  he  has  the  misfortune  not  to  be  a 
Frenchman.  I  conveyed  a  short  letter  to  Mr.  Louis 
Staunton  through  the  proper  authorities,  requesting  him 
to  try  and  remember  the  entire  matter  of  a  certain  letter 
he  had  unquestionably  written  to  Alice  Rhodes  in 
August,  1876,  and  to  send  it  to  me  verbatim.  Some  delay 
took  place  while  my  letter  was  submitted  to  authorities 
outside  the  gaol,  but  Fair  Play  prevailed,  and  I  now 
append  the  letter  to  my  own,  which  is  of  less  value.  I 
send  it  all  the  same,  because  I  have  looked  narrowly 
into  that  of  Staunton's  and  I  don't  see  any  of  that  self- 
evident  mendacity,  I  have  felt  it  my  duty  to  point  out 
in  the  garbled  quotation  the  roj)e  of  sand.  This  letter, 
at  all  events,  mat/  be  true.  For  here  I  see  youth,  with 
its  selfish  vices,  not  looking  months  and  months  ahead, 
either  for  good  or  bad,  but  getting  Harriet  out  of  the 
way  without  a  metaphor,  to  enjoy  the  sweet  vice  his 
self-indulgent  soul  was  filled  with,  and  not  with  long 
cold-blooded  schemes  of  murder  such  as  belong  to  more 
hardened  natures  than  this,  who,  we  learn  from  the 
Crown  itself,  and  on  oath,  sat  down  and  cried  because 
his  wife  upset  the  house.     The  following  is 

Louis  Staunton's  Letter. 

Maidstone  Gaol,   October  llth,  1877. 

Sir,  —  T  duly  received  your  letter  of  the  9th  inst.,  and 

now  beg  to  reply  to  it.      The  letter  in  question  I  wrote 

to   Alice  Rhodes   on  or   about  August   17,  1876.     The 

facts  are  these  :  I  had  several  times  promised  to  take 


HANG    IN    HASTE,    REPENT   AT    LEISURE.       347 

Alice  Ehodes  down  to  Brighton  for  a  week,  but  had  been 
prevented  from  doing  so.  But  on  Saturday,  August  14, 
Mrs.  Staunton,  Alice  Ehodes,  and  myself,  went  down  to 
Cudham,  for  the  purpose  of  leaving  Mrs.  Staunton 
there,  that  we  might  go  to  Brighton  on  the  Tuesday; 
but  on  the  Monday  I  received  a  telegram  to  say  my 
father  was  worse.  My  brother  and  myself  immediately 
came  up  to  London,  leaving  Alice  Ehodes  and  Mrs. 
Staunton  at  Cudham.     T  then  wrote  her  this  letter  :  — 

"My  own  Darling, 

"T  know  you  will  be  sorry  to  hear  that  my 
poor  dear  father  passed  away  yesterday.  This  is  a  sad 
blow  to  me,  but  we  all  have  our  troubles.  Our  trip 
must  now  be  put  off  again.  It  seems  as  if  it  is  not  to 
be  ;  but  I  will  arrange  another  time  to  get  Harriet  out 
of  the  Avay ;  so  you  must  not  be  disappointed.  I  shall 
have  to  remain  down  home  for  a  few  days,  so  Harriet 
had  better  stop  down  with  you." 

I  believe  I  have  now  given  you  word  for  word  what  I 
said  in  this  letter.  I  have  thought  well  over  it,  and  can- 
not remember  saying  anything  more.  What  I  meant  by 
"  It  seems  as  if  it  is  not  to  be "  was  our  going  to 
Brighton,  and  of  getting  "  Harriet  out  of  the  way,"  that 
she  might  not  know  anything  about  it. 

This  is  the  whole  truth  of  the  letter. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Yours  obediently, 

LOUIS    STAUNTON. 
Charles  Reade,  Esq. 

The  Public  is  to  understand  that  I  deal  fairly  with 
the  Powerful  Journal  which  has  done  me  the  honour  to 


348  READIANA. 

allow  me  to  express  boldly  my  unalterable  convictions. 
I  do  not  write  letters  and  say  ^'  Thus  said  Staunton  ; "  I 
tender  you  his  handwriting,  begging  you  to  do  me  the 
honour  to  keep  it,  and  show  it  to  few  or  many  as  you 
think  proper.  I  do  not  lead  witnesses  as  I  think  Clara 
Brown  was  led  —  unconsciously,  no  doubt.  My  short 
letter,  to  which  this  is  a  reply,  lies  in  Maidstone  Gaol. 
I  can't  remember  what  I  write,  like  this  young  sinner, 
nor  imagine  what  other  people  write  —  like  Miss  Brown 
plus  an  attorney's  clerk.  But  I  am  sure  it  is  a  short 
line,  just  asking  the  man  to  send  the  truth.  He  looks 
on  himself  as  a  dying  man;  has  no  hope  of  saving  him- 
self ;  and  I  think  he  has  come  pretty  near  the  truth  in 
his  letter.  Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES   READE. 

P.  S.  —  Now  that  I  have  opened  the  dumb  creature's 
mouth,  which  that  beastly  court,  the  disgrace  of  Europe, 
had  closed,  who  doubts  the  real  meaning  of  the  letter, 
and  that  the  writer  nad  Adultery  in  view,  and  had  not 
Homicide. 


THE    LEGAL   VOCABULARY.  349 


THE   LEGAL  VOCABULAEY. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Pall  Mall  Gazette." 

Sir,  —  Now  those  swift-footed  hares,  my  eloquent  con- 
temporaries, have  galloped  over  Diblanc's  trial,  may  I 
ask  yoQ,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  to  let  the  tortoise 
crawl  over  it  with  his  microscopic  eye  ?  Where  female 
culprits  are  to  be  judged,  a  patient  drudge,  who  has 
studied  that  sex  profoundly  in  various  walks  of  life, 
including  Diblanc's,  is  sometimes  a  surer  exponent  of 
facts  than  is  a  learned  lawyer.  I  will  keep  strictly 
within  the  limits  of  the  legal  defence.  The  Crown  used 
Diblanc  as  its  witness  to  the  killing,  and  this,  by  a  rule 
of  law  which  is  inexorable,  and  governs  alike  a  suit  or 
an  indictment,  let  in  the  prisoner's  explanations  as  evi- 
dence. But  there  are  degrees  of  evidence ;  what  she  said 
against  herself  was  first-class  evidence ;  what  she  said 
favourable  to  herself  was  low  evidence,  to  be  received 
when  it  is  contradicted  neither  by  a  living  witness  nor  a 
clear  fact.  I  keep  within  this  circle,  traced  by  the  judge 
himself,  simply  premising  that  I  have  seen  many  a  pris- 
oner acquitted  on  his  own  explanation  of  motives,  thus 
made  admissible,  though  poor,  evidence,  by  the  prosecutor. 

Xow  did  the  criminal  seek  the  victim,  or  the  victim 
her  ?  Where  was  the  crime  committed  ?  In  the 
kitchen.  And  what  is  the  kitchen  ?  It  is  a  poor  man's 
cottage  on  the  ground-floor  of  a  gentleman's  house.  Xo 
paper  —  no  carpet  —  stone  floor  —  it  is  made  like  a  ser- 


350  READIANA. 

vant's  home  out  of  contempt ;  but  the  result  of  that  con- 
tempt is,  that  the  female  domestic  feels  at  home  in  it. 
soul  and  body.  It  is  the  servant's  house,  and  the  cook's 
castle  and  workshop.  To  come  and  insult  her  there 
galls  her  worse  than  in  the  gentlefolk's  part.  What  a 
lady  feels  if  a  cook  walks  up  into  the  drawing-room  to 
affront  her,  that  the  cook  feels  if  the  mistress  comes 
down  into  her  castle  to  affront  her.  But  a  kitchen  is 
something  else  —  it  is  an  arsenal  of  deadly  weapons, 
with  every  one  of  which  the  cook  is  familiar.  The  prin- 
cipal are  —  a  hatchet  to  chop  wood,  a  rolling-pin,  a  steel 
to  sharpen  knives,  a  cleaver,  an  enormous  poker,  a  bread 
knife,  carving  knife,  &c.  Into  this  cook's  castle  and 
arsenal  of  lethal  weapons  comes  Diblanc's  mistress  on  a 
Sunday  forenoon,  when  even  a  cook  is  entitled  to  a  little 
bit  of  peace  and  some  little  reduction  of  her  labour,  if 
possible,  and  gives  an  inconsiderate  order.  The  cook 
says  there's  no  need  for  that ;  dinner  is  not  till  seven. 
This  offends  the  mistress,  and  she  threatens  to  discharge 
her  on  the  spot.  The  cook  says  she  will  go  directly  if 
her  month's  wages  are  paid  her.  "  No,"  says  the  mis- 
tress, "  I  will  keep  you  your  time  ;  but  I  will  make  you 
suffer."  Here  there  is  a  lacuna ;  but  the  climax  was 
that  the  mistress  called  this  poor  hard-working  woman, 
in  her  castle  and  workshop,  a  prostitute,  and  dwelt  upon 
the  epithet.  Then  the  cook,  goaded  to  fury,  took,  not 
one  of  the  murderous  weapons  close  at  hand,  but  sprang 
at  her  mistress's  throat,  and  griped  it  with  such  fury 
that  she  broke  the  poor  creature's  jaw  and  throttled  her 
on  the  spot,  and  probably  killed  her  on  the  spot,  what- 
ever she  may  have  said  to  the  contrary.  The  deed  done, 
the  criminal  is  all  amazement,  vacillation,  and  uncer- 
tainty in  word  and  deed.     Her  deeds :   She  carries  the 


THE   LEGAL   VOCABULARY.  351 

body  wildly  here  and  there  ;  she  puts  a  rope  round  its 
neck  in  a  mad  attempt  to  pass  the  act  off  for  suicide; 
she  resolves  on  flight ;  she  has  not  the  means  ;  she  casts 
her  eyes  round,  and  sees  the  safe  with  money  in  it ;  she 
breaks  it  open,  and»  takes  enough  for  her  purpose  ;  she 
does  not  pillage ;  she  steals  the  means  of  flight ;  she  robs 
in  self-def'^nce.  Her  words  :  "  I  leave  for  Paris  this 
evening."  Then  a  horror  falls  on  her  like  a  thunder- 
clap. "  No,  I  shall  never  see  Paris  again,  not  even  my 
parents."  Is  there  nothing  human  in  this  sudden  cry 
of  a  poor  savage  awaking  to  her  crime  ?  "I  shall  try 
to  leave  for  America."  So,  then,  she  goes  out  intending 
to  sail  to  America,  and  goes  just  where  she  did  not  mean 
to  go  —  to  Paris.  She  gets  there,  and  instantly  pays  a 
just  debt  with  the  money  she  no  longer  needed  to  save 
her  life.  In  other  words,  she  is  no  more  a  real  thief  than 
a  real  murderer,  as  the  common-sense  of  mankind  imder- 
stands  the  words.  With  the  light  thus  reflected  by  her  sub- 
sequent conduct,  all  vacillation  and  inability  to  carry  out  a 
design,  I  return  to  the  homicide  and  its  true  interpretation. 
Fact  goes  by  precedent  as  well  as  law,  and,  strange 
to  say,  lawyers,  those  slaves  of  precedent,  often  forget 
this.  Now,  what  does  experience  or  precedent  teach  us 
with  regard  to  the  murder  of  adults  by  adults  ?  Is  the 
open  hand  the  weapon  murder  selects  ?  It  is  the  weapon 
cold-blooded  robbery  has  often  selected  to  avoid  murder? 
But  is  it  the  weapon  murder  has  often  selected  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  But  Diblanc's  defence  rests  on  far  stronger 
ground.  The  point  of  her  defence  is  this  :  She  stood  in 
an  arsenal  of  deadly  iceapons,  and  yet  avoided  thenij  and 
used  the  non-lethal  iceapon  —  her  bare  hands  —  being 
maddened  to  fury  and  burning  for  revenge,  but  not  posi- 
tively intending  to  murder  either  before  the  attack  or  at 


352  READIANA. 

the  moment  of  the  attaclx.  These  facts,  minutely  ex- 
amined, tear  the  theory  of  "premeditation"  up  by  the 
roots  ;  but  you  cannot  tear  that  theory  up  by  the  roots 
without  displacing  the  theory  of  "  intention,"  and  letting 
in  the  defendant's  evidence  that  she  did  not  intend  to  kill 
Madame  Kiel.  And  this  brings  me  naturally  to  the  na- 
ture and  extent  of  the  provocation  that  stung  her  to  fury. 
Mr.  Baron  Channell  says  that  no  mere  words  can 
by  provocation  reduce  wilful  killing  to  manslaughter. 
Granted ;  but  I  think  this  applies  only  to  killing  with 
lethal  weapons.  Where  two  things  combine  —  where  A 
receives  a  foul  provocation  in  language  from  B,  and, 
avoiding  the  lethal  weapons  close  to  his  hand,  kills  B 
with  the  bare  hand,  I  think  the  jury  have  a  right  to  call 
that  manslaughter  if  they  please.  A  calls  B  a  liar; 
B  knifes  him.  Murder.  B  calls  C  a  liar ;  C  fells  him 
with  a  blow,  and  kills  him.  Manslaughter.  Oh,  but 
throttling  is  worse  than  striking.  Ay,  worse  in  a  man, 
but  not  in  a  woman,  because  women  do  not  fight  with 
the  fist;  they  ahcays  go  at  each  other  wdth  the  claws, 
and  no  murder  done  one  time  in  a  thousand.  If  we  are 
to  judge  women  we  really  must  not  begin  by  being  pig- 
headed idiots,  and  confounding  them  entirely,  mind  and 
limbs,  with  men.  The  truth  is,  language  contains  no 
word  with  which  a  man  can  strike  a  man  to  the  heart,  in 
his  own  person,  as  a  woman  can  strike  a  w^oman  with  a 
word.  It  is  at  once  stupid  and  cruel  the  way  in  which 
this  poor  creature's  provocation  has  been  slurred  over. 
The  evidence  is  all  in  favour  of  her  continence.  When 
out  of  place  in  Paris  she  fell  in  debt  directly ;  a  plain 
proof  labour  was  her  only  way  of  getting  bread.  Here 
in  London  it  comes  out  that  her  wages  were  everything 
to  her.     She  wanted  to  go  but  could  not  for  want  of  a 


THE   LEGAL   VOCABULARY.  353 

little  money.     Why,  her  very  strength,  about  which  so 
much  twaddle  has  been  uttered,  was  not  the  strength  of 
the  individual,  it  was  only  the  strength  that  comes  to 
women  of  her  age  by  an  honourable,  laborious,  and  conti- 
nent life.     And  it  is  a  small  thing  that  to  such  a  wo- 
man, working  in  her   kitchen   for   her   bread,  another 
woman,  whose  life  was  not   laborious    and   honourable 
like  hers,  should  come   and  say.  You  are  a  prostitute. 
"  Facile  judicate  qui  pauca  considerat."     We  must  con- 
sider not   the   insult   only,  but   the  quarter  whence   it 
came;    and  we  shall  find  the  utmost   limits  of   verbal 
provocation  have  been  reached  in  Diblanc's  case.     The 
time  — Sunday  morning,  when  the  world  gets  peace,  and 
even  cooks  hope  for  it.     The  place  — her  own  kitchen. 
The  insult  —  the  most  intolerable  the  mind  can  conceive; 
and  a  lie.     The  result  —  honest  labour  and  continence 
used  none  of  the  lethal  weapons  at  hand,  but  took  luxury 
and  foul-mouthed  slander  by  the  throat.     Luxury's  arm 
was  pithless  against  insulted  labour  and  continence,  and 
a  crime  was  consummated,  when  between  two  working 
women  there  would  only  have  been  a  fight. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  women  that  few  men,  except 
one  or  two  writers  of  fiction,  can  put  themselves  in  a 
woman's  place,  and  so  qualify  themselves  to  judge  her 
in  these  obscure  cases.  But  let  me  put  a  man,  as  nearly 
as  I  can,  in  this  woman's  place.  A  man  is  with  his  wife, 
whom  he  loves  as  dearly  as  Diblanc  loves  herself. 
Another  man  comes  and  calls  that  woman  a  prostitute 
to  her  face  and  his  :  there's  a  hatchet  on  one  side  of  the 
husband,  a  carving  knife  on  the  other.  The  husband 
takes  neither,  but  seizes  the  slanderer  by  the  throat,  and 
squeezes  the  life  out  of  him.  Would  that  man  be  in- 
dicted for  murder  ?     I  doubt  it.     Would  Baron  Chan- 


354  READIANA. 

nell  ask  a  conviction  for  murder  ?  I  doubt  it.  If  he 
did,  no  jury  in  England  would  convict.  Yet  here  the 
provocation  is  purely  verbal,  and  the  killing  identical 
with  Diblanc's. 

Let  me  now,  without  blaming  any  living  person,  draw 
the  attention  of  public  men  to  the  stereotyped  trickery 
and  equivocation  by  means  of  which  the  death  of 
Marguerite  Diblanc  has  been  compassed  —  in  theory  ;  for 
she  is  not  to  die,  I  conclude.  Some  lawyer,  in  the  name 
of  a  humane  Sovereign,  draws  a  bloodthirsty,  exagger- 
ated indictment,  and  says  Diblanc  slew  Madame  Kiel 
wilfully  and  with  malice  aforethought.  The  evidence 
contradicts  the  malice  and  the  aforethought,  which  are 
the  very  sting  of  the  indictment,  and  the  jury  demur. 
"  Oh,  let  that  flea  stick  in  the  wall,"  says  the  judge,  "  we 
don't  go  by  Johnson's  Dictionary  here  ;  '  aforethought,' 
that  means  *  contemporaneous  '  in  our  vocabulary,  and 
'  malice '  means  rage,  passion,  anything  you  like  —  ex- 
cept malice,  of  course.  All  you  have  got  to  do  is  to  dis- 
regard the  terms  of  the  indictment,  and  if  she  killed  the 
woman  at  all  say  she  killed  her  with  malice  afore- 
thought." The  jury,  who  are  generally  novices  and 
easily  overcome  by  the  picture  of  a  gentleman  thatched 
with  horsehair,  assent  with  reluctance,  and  recommend 
the  prisoner  to  mercy,  thereby  giving  their  verdict  the 
lie  :  for  if  the  indictment  was  not  an  impudent  falsehood 
and  their  verdict  another  she  would  be  a  most  unfit  sub- 
ject for  mercy.  The  bastard  verdict  which  says  "  Yes  " 
with  a  trumpet  and  "No"  with  a  penny  whistle  being 
obtained  by  persuasion,  the  judge  goes  coolly  back  to  Dr. 
Johnson,  whom  he  has  disowned  for  a  time  in  order  to 
get  a  verdict,  and  condemns  the  woman  to  death  for 
having   killed   her   fellow-creature    with   malice    afore- 


THE   LEGAL   VOCABULAHY.  355 

thought,  as  Johnson  understands  the  words.  But,  as  he 
too  knows  it  is  all  humbug,  and  a  verbal  swindle  in- 
vented by  dead  fools  and  forced  upon  him,  he  takes 
measures  to  refer  it  to  a  layman  called  the  Home  Secre- 
tary, who  is  to  find  straightforwardness,  sense,  manhood, 
and,  above  all,  English  for  the  whole  lot. 

Now,  sir,  I  agree  with  the  writer  of  your  able  article 
of  the  loth  of  June,  that  the  way  out  of  this  is  to  en- 
large, purify,  and  correct  the  legal  vocabulary.  The 
judges  are  in  a  hole.  With  two  words  —  "  manslaughter  " 
and  "  murder "  —  they  are  expected  to  do  the  work  of 
three  or  four  words ;  and  how  can  they  ?  It  is  im- 
possible. Enlarge  this  vocabulary,  and  the  most  salu- 
tary consequences  will  flow  in.  Sweep  away  '^man- 
slaughter," which  is  an  idiotic  word  meaning  more  than" 
murder  in  etymology,  and  less  in  law,  and  divide  un- 
lawful killing  into  three  heads  —  homicide,  wilful  homi- 
cide, murder.  Then  let  it  be  enacted  that  hencefor- 
ward it  shall  be  lawful  for  juries  to  understand  all 
words  used  in  indictments,  declarations,  pleadings,  &c., 
in  their  plain  and  grammatical  sense,  and  to  defy  all 
other  interpretations  whatever.  Twelve  copies  of  every 
indictment  ought  to  be  in  the  jury  box,  and  every 
syllable  of  those  indictments  proved  whether  bearing  on 
fact  or  motive,  or  else  the  prisoner  acquitted.  Neither 
the  Crown  nor  the  private  suitor  should  be  allowed  to 
exaggerate  without  smarting  for  it  in  the  verdict,  just  as 
in  the  world  overloaded  invective  recoils  upon  the 
shooter.  I  am.  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

CHAELES  KEADE. 
Magdalen  College,  Oxford, 
June  17th,  1872. 


356  KEADLAJSTA. 


COLONEL  BAKER'S  SENTENCE. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Daily  Telegraph." 

Sir,  —  A  great  many  journals  and  weeklies  have  told 
the  public  that  an  English  judge  has  passed  too  lenient 
a  sentence  on  Colonel  Baker  because  he  belongs  to  the 
upper  classes.  Some  have  added  that  the  same  judge 
had  inflicted  a  severe  sentence  on. certain  gas  stokers, 
and  so  we  have  a  partial  judge  upon  the  bench.  This  is 
a  grave  conclusion,  and,  if  true,  would  be  deplorable. 
You  would  yourself  regret  it,  and  therefore  will,  I  am 
sure,  permit  me  to  show  you,  by  hard  facts,  that  all  this 
is  not  only  untrue,  but  the  exact  opposite  of  the  truth 
in  every  particular.  Fact  1.  The  proceedings  against 
Baker  commenced  with  an  application  for  delay  and  a 
special  jury.  Here  was  an  opportunity  to  favour  him. 
The  judge  rejected  the  application,  and  he  was  tried  by 
a  common  jury.  2.  On  the  trial  the  prosecuting  counsel 
attacked  him  with  a  severity  that  is  now  unusual,  and 
used  a  false  comparison  to  lead  the  jury  farther  than  the 
evidence  warranted.  3.  In  contrast  to  this,  Baker  was 
defended  with  strict  moderation.  In  France  the  accused 
speaks  as  well  as  his  counsel,  but  in  England  his  own 
mouth  is  closed,  and  we  must  assume  instructions  and 
give  him  the  credit  or  discredit  due  to  his  line  of  de- 
fence. Now,  there  was  a  point  in  the  plaintiff's  evidence 
which  to  my  mind  is  womanly  and  charming,  but  still, 
before  a  common  jury,  Mr.  Hawkins  could  have  done 


COLONEL    baker's    SENTENCE.  357 

almost  what  he  liked  with  it.  It  appeared  that  when 
the  young  lady  was  on  the  doorstep  she  told  her  assailant 
he  must  hold  her  or  she  would  fall.  They  little  know 
the  power  of  counsel  who  doubt  that,  by  a  series  of  sly 
ironical  questions  on  this  point,  the  case  could  have  been 
weakened  by  ridicule,  and  the  plaintiff  tortured.  Since 
the  lower  orders  have  been  dragged  into  this,  it  should 
be  considered  that  every  one  of  them  would  have  so  de- 
fended himself,  except  those  who  had  got  rid  of  the  case 
before  by  shoving  the  girl  off  the  step  instead  of  holding 
her.  "  That  is  the  sort  of  men  they  are."  My  brilliant 
contemporaries  know  nothing  about  them.  How  should 
they,  being  in  an  exalted  sphere  ?  4.  The  common  jury 
cleared  him  of  a  criminal  assault,  and  found  him  guilty 
of  an  indecent  assault.  My  brilliant  contemporaries 
hanker  after  the  higher  issue,  and  would  like  to  see  it  in 
the  judgment,  though  it  was  not  in  the  verdict.  But 
that  would  be  to  juggle  with  the  constitutional  tribunal, 
and  be  inexcusable  in  a  judge.  5.  Mr.  Justice  Brett 
dwelt  on  the  enormity  of  the  offence,  and  admitted  only 
one  palliating  circumstance  —  viz.,  that  the  culprit,  when 
he  found  the  lady  would  risk  her  life  sooner  than  be  in- 
sulted, came  to  his  senses,  and  showed  a  tardy  compunc- 
tion. This  was  so ;  and  Colonel  Baker's  line  of  defence 
before  the  magistrates  and  before  the  court  entitled  him 
to  this  small  palliation.  6.  Witnesses  were  called  to  char- 
acter, with  a  view  to  mitigating  punishment.  Now,  when 
a  culprit  of  the  lower  orders  can  do  this  effectually,  it 
always  reduces  punishment  —  sometimes  one  half,  or 
more.  Were  it  to  go  for  nothing  where  a  gentleman 
has  committed  his  first  public  crime,  there  would  be 
gross  partiality  in  favour  of  the  lower  orders,  and  an 
utter  defiance  of  precedent.     7.  The  punishment  inflicted 


358  READIANA. 

was  a  fine,  £500,  and  a  year's  imprisonment  as  a  first- 
class  misdemeanant.     My  brilliant  contemporaries  think 
that  a  poor  man  would  have  been  much  worse  punished. 
Now  let  us  understand  one  another.     Do  they  mean  a 
poor  man  who  had  so  assaulted  a  lady,  or  a  poor  man 
who  had  so  assaulted  a  poor  woman  ?     Their  language 
only  fits  the  latter  view.     Very  well,  then.     My  brilliant 
contemporaries  have  eaten  the  insane  root  that  takes  the 
reason  prisoner.     Every  day  in  the  year  men  of  the  lower 
orders  commit  two  thousand  such  assaults  upon  women 
of  the  lower  orders,  and  it  is  so  little  thought  of  that  the 
culprits  are  rarely  brought  to  justice  at  all.     When  they 
are,  it  is  a  police  magistrate,  and  not  a  jury,  the  women 
apply  to.     It  is  dealt  with  on  the  spot  by  a  small  fine  or 
a  very  short  imprisonment.     Colonel  Baker,  had  he  been 
a  navvy,  would  have  got  one  month.     My  brilliant  con- 
temporaries go  to  their  imagination  for  their  facts.     I, 
poor  drudge,  go  to  one  out  of  twenty  folio  notebooks  in 
which  I  have  entered,  alphabetically,  the  curious  facts 
of  the  day  for  many  a  year.     The  fines  for  indecent  as- 
saults range  from  five  pounds  to  twenty.     Amongst  the 
examples  is  one  that  goes  far  beyond  Baker's  case,  for 
the  culprit  had  recourse  to  chloroform.     I  call  this  a 
criminal  assault.     The  magistrate,  however,  had  a  doubt, 
and  admitted  the  culprit  to  bail.     At  the  expiration  of 
the  bail  the  Lucretia  in  humble  life  walked  into  the  court 
on  Tarquin's  arm,  and  begged  to  withdraw  the  plaint. 
She  had  married  him  in  that  brief  interval.     And  that, 
O  too  imaginative  contemporaries,  "  is  the  sort  of  women 
they  are."     The  magistrate  scolded  them  both,  and  said 
it  was  collusion  to  defeat  the  law.     He  lacked  humour, 
poor  man.     When  a  lady  or  a  gentleman  is  one  of  the 
parties,  that  immediately  elevates  the  offence.     I  have 


COLONEL   baker's    SENTENCE.  3^9 

a  case  in  my  list  that  resembles  Baker's  in  some  respects. 
It  was  a  railway  case  —  the  offender  a  gentleman,  the 
plaintiff  a  respectable  milliner.  This  was  dealt  with 
at  quarter  sessions;  fine  £200,  no  imprisonment.  In 
Craft's  case  the  parties  were  reversed.  Craft,  a  carpen- 
ter, at  Farringdon,  kissed  by  force  the  daughter  of  a 
neighbouring  clergyman.  She  took  him  before  a  jury, 
and  he  got  six  months.  But  her  Majesty  remitted  three 
months  of  this  sentence. 

I  am  informed  there  was  a  case  the  other  day,  and  a 
bad  one  —  punishment  two  months.  But  I  will  not  be 
sure,  for  I  have  not  seen  it.  Of  this  I  am  absolutely 
sure,  that  Baker's  sentence  is  severe  beyond  all  precedent. 
His  fine  is  more  than  double  the  highest  previous  fine. 
His  imprisonment,  if  not  shortened,  will  be  four  times 
the  term  of  Craft's,  and  about  twelve  times  what,  if  the 
female  had  been  in  humble  life,  a  blackguard  by  descent 
and  inheritance  would  have  got,  and  he  is  both  fined  and 
imprisoned.  I  think  it  most  proper  a  gentleman  should 
be  more  severely  punished  for  so  heinous  an  offence. 
But  it  is  not  proper  that  facts  should  be  turned  clean 
topsy-turvy,  and  the  public  humbugged  into  believing 
that  the  lower  order  of  people  are  treated  more  severely 
in  such  cases,  when,  on  the  contrary,  they  are  treated 
with  gross  partiality ;  still  less  is  it  proper  that  these 
prodigious  errors  of  fact  should  be  used  to  cast  a  slur 
upon  the  just  reputation  of  a  very  sagacious,  careful,  and 
independent  judge.  To  drag  the  gas  stokers'  case  into 
this  question  is  monstrous.  Law  has  many  branches, 
and  a  somewhat  arbitrary  scale  of  punishments  that 
binds  the  judges  more  or  less.  As  a  rule  it  treats 
offences  against  the  person  more  lightly  than  offences 
against  property  —  ay,  even  when  marks  of  injury  have 


360  READIANA. 

been  left  upon  the  person  for  months.  Now,  the  law  of 
England  abhors  conspiracy,  and  Mr.  Justice  Brett  found 
the  law ;  he  did  not  make  it,  nor  yet  did  his  grandfather. 
The  gas  stokers'  sentence  had  nothing  on  earth  to  do 
with  their  birth  and  parentage.  They  were  representa- 
tive men  —  the  ringleaders  of  a  great  conspiracy,  and 
the  only  offenders  nailed  in  a  case  where  our  gaols  ought 
to  have  been  filled  with  the  blackguards.  It  was  a  heart- 
less, egotistical,  and  brutal  conspiracy ;  its  object  a  fraud, 
and  its  instrument  a  public  calamity.  The  associated 
egotists  inflicted  darkness  on  a  great  city  during  the 
hours  of  traffic.  They  not  only  incommoded  a  vast  pub- 
lic cruelly ;  they  also  added  to  the  perils  of  the  city,  and 
most  likely  injured  life  and  limb.  The  judge  who  pun- 
ished these  deliberate  and  combined  criminals  severely 
was  the  mouth-piece  of  an  offended  and  injured  public, 
and  not  of  any  clique  whatever ;  for  no  clique  monopo- 
lises light  nor  can  do  without  it,  least  of  all  the  poor. 
He  gave  his  reasons  at  the  time,  and  the  press-  approved 
them,  as  anybody  can  see  by  turning  to  the  files.  To 
these  facts,  sir,  I  beg  to  add  a  grain  of  common  sense. 
What  is  there  in  a  British  Colonel  to  dazzle  a  British 
judge  ?  The  judge  is  a  much  greater  man  in  society  and 
in  the  country ;  and  in  court  he  is  above  the  Princes  of 
the  Blood,  for  he  represents  the  person  and  wields  the 
power  of  the  Sovereign.  Class  distinctions  do  not  much 
affect  the  judges  of  our  day.  They  sit  too  high  above 
all  classes.  One  or  two  of  them,  I  see,  share  the  uni- 
versal foible,  and  truckle  a  little  to  the  press.  If  a 
modern  judge  is  above  that  universal  weakness,  he  is 
above  everything  but  his  conscience  and  his  God.  Per- 
haps my  brilliant  contemporaries  have  observed  that 
solitary  foible  in  our  judges,  and  are  resolved  that  Mr. 


COLONEL    baker's    SENTENCE.  361 

Justice  Brett  shall  not  overrate  their  ability  to  gauge 
his  intellects  or  his  character.  If  that  was  their  object, 
they  have  written  well. 

CHAELES  EEADE. 
August  SOth,  1875. 


362  READLAJS^A. 


PROTEST    AGAINST    THE    ]\IURDER    AT 
LEWES    GAOL. 

To    THE    EDITOR   OF*  THE    "  DaILY    NewS.'* 

Sir,  —  I  claim  the  right  of  a  good  citizen  to  disown, 
before  God  and  man,  a  wicked  and  insane  act  just  com- 
mitted in  the  name  of  the  country,  and  therefore  in  mine, 
unless  I  publicly  dissent 

An  Englishman  named  Murdock  was  killed  yesterday 
at  Lewes  by  the  ministers  of  the  law,  for  a  crime  the 
law  of  England  does  not  visit  with  death.  The  crime 
was  manslaughter.  It  is  not  possible  that  even  an  Eng- 
lish judge  could  so  mistake  the  law  as  really  to  take  the 
man's  crime  for  murder.  It  was  destitute,  not  of  one, 
two,  or  three,  but  of  all  the  features  that  the  law  re- 
quires in  murder.  On  the  other  hand,  it  had  all  the 
features  that  distinguish  manslaughter.  There  was  no 
murderous  weapon  —  there  was  no  weapon  at  all ;  no 
premeditation,  no  personal  malice.  The  act  was  done 
in  the  confusion,  hurry,  and  agitation  of  a  struggle,  and 
that  struggle  was  commenced,  not  by  the  homicide  but 
the  victim. 

As  respects  the  animus  at  the  time,  it  is  clear  the  vio- 
lence was  done  alto  Intuitu;  the  prisoner  was  fighting, 
not  to  kill  but  to  escape  ;  and  that  he  never  from  first 
to  last  aimed  at  killing  appeared  further  by  his  re- 
maining in  the  neighbourhood,  and  his  surprise  and 
ignorance  of   his   victim's   death.     In  a  word,  it   was 


THE   MURDER    AT    LEWES    GAOL.  363 

manslaughter  in  its  mildest  form.  I  have  seen  a  boy  of 
eighteen  hanged  for  stealing  a  horse.  It  was  a  barbar- 
ous act,  but  it  was  the  law.  I  have  seen  a  forger  hanged. 
It  was  cruel,  but  it  was  the  law.  But  now,  for  the  first 
time  (while  murderers  are  constantly  escaping  the  law), 
I  have  seen  an  English  head  fall  by  the  executioner  in 
defiance  of  the  law.  I  wash  this  man's  blood  from  my 
hands,  and  from  my  honourable  name.  I  disown  that 
illegal  act,  and  the  public  will  follow  me.  I  cannot  say 
to-day  where  the  blame  lies,  and  in  what  proportions  ; 
but  I  will  certainly  find  out ;  and  as  certainly  all  those 
concerned  in  it  po^ulo  respondebunt  et  mi/iL 

CHARLES  READE. 


364  READIAKA. 


STARVATION  REFUSING  PLENTY. 

To    THE    EDITOR    OF    THE    "  DaILY    TeLEGRAPH." 

Sir,  —  The  journals  recorded  last  week  the  death  by- 
starvation  of  a  respectable  sempstress.  Now,  the  death 
by  starvation  of  a  single  young  working  woman  is  a  blot 
upon  civilisation  and  a. disgrace  to  humanity.  It  implies 
also  great  misery  and  much  demi-starvation  in  the  class 
that  furnishes  the  extreme  example.  The  details  in  this 
case  were  pitiable,  and  there  were  some  comments  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph  well  adapted  to  make  men  feel  and 
think  even  if  they  never  knew  hunger  personally.  They 
have  set  me  thinking  for  one,  and  I  beg  to  offer  my 
thoughts.  I  have  observed,  in  a  general  way,  that  the 
world  is  full  of  live  counterparts,  by  which  I  mean 
people  that  stand  in  need  of  other  people,  who  stand 
equally  in  need  of  them ;  only  these  two  live  counter- 
parts of  the  social  system  cannot  find  each  other  out. 
Distance  and  ignorance  keep  them  apart.  Of  late  the 
advertisement  sheet  has  done  much  to  cure  that,  and  is 
an  incalculable  boon  to  mankind.  But  as  there  are 
counterpart  individuals,  so  are  there  counterpart  classes, 
and  I  shall  ask  your  assistance  to  bring  two  of  these 
classes  together  and  substitute  for  starvation  repletion. 
I  see  before  me,  say,  two  thousand  honest,  virtuous,  in- 
dustrious young  women,  working  hard  and  half  starved ; 
and  I  see  before  me  at  least  twenty  thousand  other 
women  holding  out  plenty  in  both  hands,  and  that  plenty 


STAEVATION   EEFTTSING    PLENTY.  365 

rejected  with  scorn  by  young  women  of  very  little  merit 
or,  if  not  rejected,  accepted  only  under  vexatious  and 
galling  conditions  imposed  by  the  persons  to  be  benefited. 
Aid  me  then,  Sir,  to  introduce  to  a  starving  class  an 
oppressed  and  insulted  and  pillaged  class  which  offers  a 
clean  healthy  lodging  and  no  rent  to  pay,  butcher's  meat 
twice  a  day,  food  at  all  hours,  tea,  beer,  and  from  £12 
to  £18  a  year  pocket-money,  in  return  for  a  few  hours 
of  healthy  service  per  day.  To  speak  more  plainly, 
domestic  servants  have  become  rare,  owing  to  wholesale 
and  most  injudicious  exportation :  and  although  their 
incapacity  in  their  business  has  greatly  increased  —  es- 
pecially the  incapacity  of  cooks  —  they  impose  not  only 
higher  wages,  but  intolerable  conditions.  The  way  the 
modest  householder  is  ground  down  by  these  young 
ladies  is  a  grievance  too  large  to  be  dealt  with  under 
this  head,  and  will  probably  lead  to  a  masters'  and 
mistresses'  league.  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  full  forty 
thousand  domestic  servants  are  now  engaged  yearly  in 
London  on  written  characters,  and  thirty  thousand  with- 
out a  character ;  and  I  speak  within  bounds  when  I  say 
that  there  are  good  places  by  the  dozen  open  to  any  re- 
spectable sempstress.  There  are  mistresses  by  the  thous- 
and who,  in  the  present  dearth  of  good  and  civil  servants, 
would  try  a  respectable  novice.  A  respectable  semp- 
stress has  always  half  a  character,  for  she  is  trusted  with 
materials  and  does  not  steal  them;  and  the  oppressed 
mistresses  in  question  would  forgive  a  few  faults  in 
housework  at  first  starting  in  a  woman  who  could  com- 
pensate them  by  skill  with  the  needle  —  no  mean  addi- 
tion to  a  servant's  value.  I  now  turn  to  the  sempstresses. 
Why  do  they  sit  hungry  to  the  dullest  of  all  labour,  and 
hold  aloof  from  domestic  service,  at  a  time  when  ladies 


366  READIANA. 

born  are  beginning  to  recognise  how  much  better  off  is 
the  rich  housemaid  than  the  poor  lady  ?  I  suspect 
the  sempstresses  are  deluded  by  two  words,  "  liberty  " 
and  "  wages."  They  think  a  female  servant  has  no 
liberty,  and  that  her  principal  remuneration  is  her 
''  wages." 

I  address  myself  to  these  two  errors.  Ovk  eo-nv  oo-rts 
i(TT  dv-jp  iXevOepo<i.  Our  liberty  is  restrained  by  other 
means  than  bolts  and  bars.  It  is  true  that  a  female  ser- 
vant cannot  run  into  the  streets  whenever  she  likes. 
But  she  sometimes  goes  on  errands  and  takes  her  time. 
She  slips  out  eternally,  and  gets  out  one  evening  at  least 
every  week.  Then,  as  to  wages,  -the  very  word  is  a 
delusion  as  far  as  she  is  concerned.  Her  wages  are  a 
drop  in  the  ocean  of  her  remuneration.  She  comes  out 
of  a  single  room,  where  she  pigs  with  her  relations,  and 
she  receives  as  remuneration  for  her  services  a  nice 
clean  room  all  to  herself,  the  market  price  of  which,  and 
the  actual  cost  to  her  employer,  is  at  least  6s.  per  week, 
and  the  use  of  a  kitchen,  and  in  some  cases  of  a  servants' 
hall,  which  is  worth  2s.  per  week,  and  the  run  of  other 
bright  and  healthy  rooms.  In  the  crib  where  she  pigged 
with  her  relations,  she  often  had  a  bit  of  bacon  for  din- 
mer,  and  a  red  herring  for  supper.  In  the  palace  of 
cleanliness  and  comfort  she  is  promoted  to,  she  gets  at 
least  four  meals  a  day,  and  butcher's  meat  at  two  of 
them.  This,  at  the  present  price  of  provisions,  is  16s. 
per  week,  which  is  more  than  an  agricultural  labourer  in 
the  Southern  counties  receives  wherewith  to  keep  a  wife 
and  seven  children.  But  besides  this  she  gets  a  shilling 
a  week  for  beer,  and  from  a  shilling  to  eighteenpence 
for  washing.  Besides  all  this  she  has  from  twelve  to 
eighteen  pounds  in  hard  cash,  with  occasional  presents 


STARVATION    REFUSING    PLENTY.  367 

of  money  and  dross.  The  wages  of  her  class  have  been 
raised  when  they  ought  to  have  been  lowered.  The  me- 
chanic's wages  are  justly  raised,  because  the  value  of 
money  depends  upon  the  value  of  the  necessaries  of  life. 
These  have  risen,  and  therefore  money  has  sunk.  But 
that  rise  does  not  affect  the  female  servants,  and  it  does 
affect  those  who  feed  them  like  fighting  cocks.  A 
droller  piece  of  logic  than  the  rise  of  fed  servants' 
pocket-money  because  unfed  servants'  wages  are  raised,  I 
never  encountered  even  in  Anglo-Saxony.  However,  the 
upshot  is  that  any  half-starved  sempstress  who  will  read 
this  crude  letter  of  mine,  and  make  diligent  inquiries, 
will  find  that  I  am  right  in  the  main :  that  domestic 
servants  are  trampling  too  hard  upon  the  people  who  are 
called  their  masters  and  mistresses ;  and  that  three 
thousand  homes  are  open  to  a  young  woman  who  can 
prove  that  she  is  not  a  thief,  and  six  thousand  hands  are 
offering  not  only  plenty,  bnt  repletion,  and  liberal  pocket- 
money  to  boot.  The  pay  of  a  housemaid,  in  rent,  fire, 
food,  washing,  beer,  and  pocket  money,  is  about  £70  a 
year,  and  this  hungry  sempstresses  can  obtain  if  they 
will  set  about  it,  and  without  any  loss  of  dignity :  for,  as 
a  rule,  servants  nowadays  hold  their  heads  as  high  or  a 
little  higher  than  their  mistresses  do. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  faithful  servant, 
CHARLES   EEADE. 


308  EEADIAXA. 


OUTRAGES   ON  THE   JEWS   IN   RUSSIA. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Daily  Telegraph." 

Sir,  —  I  am  one  of  the  many  persons  who  are  moved 
by  your  denunciation  of  the  lawless  cruelties  perpetrated 
on  the  Jews  in  Russia,  and  the  apparent  connivance  or 
apathy  of  the  varnished  savages  who  misgovern  those 
barbarians.  If  the  latter  persist  in  that  course  and  so 
make  that  a  national  crime  which  might  otherwise  re- 
main the  crime  of  numerous  individuals,  some  great  ca- 
lamity will  fall  on  them,  or  history  is  a  blind  ;  and  by  the 
same  rule  you  give  friendly  advice  when  you  urge  our 
Government  and  people  to  protest  and  wash  their  hands 
before  God  and  man  of  this  terrible  crime.  I  fear, 
however,  that  a  mere  Government  protest  will  be  slighted 
or  evaded  by  Russian  mendacity.  Fortunately  our 
nation  can  speak  and  act  by  other  organs  besides  our 
Government,  and  now  is  the  time  to  show  ourselves 
men,  and  men  whose  hearts  are  horrified  at  the  cow- 
ardly cruelty  of  this  Tartar  tribe  to  God's  ancient 
people. 

Let  us  take  a  wide  view  of  this  situation,  since  it  is  so 
great  and  so  new  in  our  day ;  for  wholesale  persecution 
of  the  Jews  is  not  of  this  epoch,  but  ^^  a  reversion  "  to 
the  dark  ages.  One  of  the  signs  that  distinguish  a  true 
Christian  from  a  sham  one  is  that  the  former  studies  the 
Greek  and  Hebrew  Scriptures  with  care  and  reverence, 


OUTRAGES   ON   THE   JEWS   IN   BUSSIA.         369 

and  there  learns  the  debt  his  heart,  soul,  and  under- 
standing owe  to  historians,  poets,  philosophers,  prophets, 
preachers,  and  teachers,  some  writing  Greek,  some  He- 
brew, but  every  one  of  them  Jews ;  and  also  learns  to 
pity  and  respect  the  Jewish  nation,  though  under  a 
cloud,  and  to  hope  for  the  time  when  they  will  resume 
their  ancient  territory,  which  is  so  evidently  kept  wait- 
ing for  them.  This,  the  hope  of  every  Christian,  is  the 
burning  and  longing  desire  of  many,  for  another  reason 

because  the  prophecies  we  receive,  though  obscure  in 

matters  of  detail,  are  clear  as  day  on  two  points  :  That 
the  Jews  are  to  repossess  Palestine,  and,  indeed,  to  rule 
from  Lebanon  to  Euphrates ;  and  that  this  event  is  to  be 
the  first  of  a  great  series  of  changes,  leaning  to  a  vast 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  poor  suffering  mankind 
and  of  creation  in  general.  Now  we  have  here  in  pros- 
pect a  glorious  event  as  sure  as  that  the  sun  will  rise  to- 
morrow. The  only  difference  is  that  the  sun  will  rise 
at  a  certain  hour,  and  the  Jews  will  occupy  Syria  and 
resume  their  national  glory  at  an  uncertain  day. 

No  doubt  it  is  the  foible  of  mankind  to  assume  that 
an  uncertain  date  must  be  a  distant  one.  But  that  is 
unreasonable.  Surely  it  is  the  duty  of  wise  and  sober 
men  not  to  run  before  the  Almighty  in  this  thing  ;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  watch  precursory  signs  and  lend 
our  humble  co-operation,  should  so  great  a  privilege  be 
accorded  to  us.  This  sudden  persecution  of  the  Jews  in 
the  very  nation  where  they  are  most  numerous  —  may 
it  not  be  a  precursory  sign  and  a  reminder  from  Provi- 
dence that  their  abiding  city  is  not  in  European  Tartary  ? 
I  almost  think  some  such  reminder  was  needed;  for 
when  I  was  a  boy  the  pious  Jews  still  longed  for  the 
Holy  Land.     They  prayed,  like  Daniel,  with  their  win- 


370  READIANA. 

dows  open  towards  Jerusalem.  Yet,  now  that  the 
broken  and  impoverished  Saracen  would  cede  them  terri- 
tory at  one-tenth  of  its  agricultural  and  commercial 
value,  a  cold  indifference  seems  to  have  come  over  them. 
I  often  wonder  at  this  change  of  sentiment  about  so 
great  a  matter  and  in  so  short  a  period,  comparatively 
speaking,  and  puzzle  myself  as  to  the  reason.  Two  so- 
lutions occur  to  me:  1.  Dispersed  in  various  nations 
whose  average  inhabitants  are  inferior  in  intelligence 
and  forethought  to  themselves,  they  thrive  as  individual 
aliens  more  than  they  may  think  so  great  a  multitude  of 
Jews  could  thrive  in  a  land  of  their  own,  where  block- 
heads would  be  scarce.  2.  They  have  for  centuries  con- 
tracted their  abilities  to  a  limited  number  of  peaceful 
arts  and  trades ;  they  may  distrust  their  power  to  di- 
versify their  abilities,  and  be  suddenly  a  complete  na- 
tion, with  soldiers,  sailors,  merchants,  husbandmen,  as 
well  as  financiers  and  artists. 

If  I  should  happen  to  be  anywhere  near  the  *  mark  in 
these  suggestions,  let  me  offer  a  word  in  reply  to  both 
objections.  In  the  first  place,  they  both  prove  too 
much,  for  they  would  keep  the  Jews  dispersed  for  ever. 
It  is  certain,  therefore,  they  will  have  to  be  got  over 
some  day,  and  therefore  the  sooner  the  better.  As  to 
objection  one,  it  is  now  proved  that  sojourning  among 
inferior  nations  has  more  drawbacks  than  living  at  home. 
True,  the  Russian  yokel  has  for  years  been  selling  to  the 
Jews  his  summer  labour  in  winter,  and  at  a  heavy  dis- 
count. But  the  silly  improvident  brute  has  turned  like 
a  wild  beast  upon  them,  and,  outwitted  lawfully,  has 
massacred  them  contrary  to  law :  and  truly  Solomon 
had  warned  them  there  is  no  animal  more  dangerous 
than  a  fool  and  a  brute  beast  without   understanding. 


OUTRAGES    ON   THE   JEWS   IX   RUSSIA.         371 

Besides,  they  need  not  evacuate  other  countries  in  a 
hurry  and  before  the  resources  of  their  own  land  are 
developed.  Dimidium  facti  qui  bene  coepit,  hahet. 
Palestine  can  be  colonised  effectually  from  Russia  alone, 
where  there  are  3,000,000  Jews  trembling  for  life  and 
property  ;  and  the  rest  would  follow.  As  to  the  second 
objection.  History  is  a  looking-glass  at  our  backs.  Turn 
round  and  look  into  it  with  your  head  as  well  as  your 
eyes,  and  you  shall  see  the  future.  Whatever  Jews 
have  done  Jews  may  do.  They  are  a  people  of  genius, 
and  genius  is  not  confined  by  i^ature,  but  by  will,  by 
habit,  or  by  accident.  To  omit  to  try  is  not  to  fail. 
What  have  this  people  tried  heartily  and  failed  in  ? 
Warriors,  writers,  builders,  merchants,  law-givers,  hus- 
bandmen, and  supreme  in  all ! 

When  they  will  consent  to  rise  to  their  destiny  I  know 
not,  but  this  I  do  know,  that,  whenever  they  do,  not  ex- 
cessive calculations,  but  some  faith,  will  be  expected  from 
them,  as  it  always  has  been,  as  a  condition  of  their  tri- 
umphs, and  they  will  prove  equal  to  the  occasion,  and 
be  great  in  the  arts  of  peace  and  war,  and  their  enemies 
melt  away  before  them  like  snow  off  a  dyke.  Should 
they  seem  to  require  help,  at  starting,  from  any  other 
nation,  blessed  will  be  the  nation  that  proffers  it ;  and 
the  nation  that  persecutes  them  will  be  made  an  example 
of  in  some  way  or  other.  Therefore,  if  by  any  chance 
this  recent  outrage  should  decide  the  Jewish  leaders  to 
colonise  Palestine  from  Russia,  let  us  freely  offer  ships, 
seamen,  money  —  whatever  we  are  asked  for.  It  will 
be  a  better  national  investment  than  Egyptian,  Brazilian, 
or  Peruvian  bonds.  Meantime,  I  implore  our  divines  to 
separate  themselves,  and  all  the  souls  under  their  charge, 
in  all  the  churches  and  chapels  in  the  land,  from  the 


372  READIANA. 

crime  of  those  picture-worshipping  idolaters  and  cowardly 
murderers,  by  public  disavowal  and  prayerful  humilia- 
tion, since  the  monsters  call  themselves  Christians. 
Yours  faithfully, 

CHARLES   READE. 

8,  Blomfield   Villas     Uxbkidge   Road. 


PKIVATE    BILLS    AJSTD    PUBLIC    WRONGS.        3T3 


PRIVATE  BILLS   AND  PUBLIC  WRONGS. 

To  THE  Editor  or  the  "Daily  Telegraph." 

Sir,  —  Not  being  a  Member  of  Parliament,  I  must 
either  submit  in  silence  to  a  bitter  wrong,  or  avert  it  by 
publicity.  The  matter  is  national.  Other  grave  inter- 
ests are  at  stake  besides  m^^  own,  and  unless  the  House 
of  Commons  is  warned  in  time  it  may  be  ensnared  into 
an  act  it  would  look  back  upon  with  some  dismay.  I 
suppose  if  anybody  were  to  propose  in  a  private  bill  to 
do  away  with  the  House  of  Lords,  or  repeal  the  whole 
common  law,  people  would  see  that  the  promoter  could 
not  be  allowed  to  enjoy  the  unfair  advantages  of  a  private 
bill  in  such  discussion.  Yet  there  is  a  private  bill  which 
aims  at  high  game ;  for  it  proposes  to  unsettle  the  prop- 
erty of  the  nation,  and  make  it  all  insecure  and  liable  to 
surprises  and  night  attacks  in  Parliament.  There  is  a 
bill  called  "Albert  Terrace  Improvement,"  which  pro- 
poses to  rob  a  substantial  freeholder  of  property  which 
I  am  justified  in  valuing  at  £120,000,  and  several  sub- 
stantial leaseholders  who  have  laid  out  from  £850  to 
£4,600  a-piece,  and  most  of  them  over  £2,000,  by  the 
odious  and  oppressive  measure  of  compulsory  purchase. 
For  certain  reasons,  which  I  will  explain  should  it  ever 
be  necessary,  the  freeholder  would  never  get  under  that 
system  one-third  of  the  value.  The  leaseholders'  case  is 
come.  They  could  not  get  their  real  value,  and  they 
live  in  the  houses,  and  no  money  could  compensate  them, 
because  no  money  could  enable  them  to  get  houses  like 


P>74  READTANA. 

these,  with  gardens  running  to  the  wall  of  Hyde  Park. 
Such  properties  are  relics  of  the  past. 

The  bill  proposes  to  give  these  houses,  gardens,  and 
sites  —  not  to  the  public  as  Northumberland  House  was 
given,  nor  yet  by  voluntar}^  purchase  —  but  to  a  single 
individual,  who  wants  them  for  a  building  speculation. 
The  operation  commenced  thus :  We  the  leaseholders 
received  visits,  not  from  road-makers,  nor  Peers  of  the 
realm,  but  from  architects  and  builders.  These  showed 
us  plans  of  enormous  houses  with  a  turret,  and  sounded 
us  as  to  our  willingness  to  turn  out  of  our  sweet  rus  in 
urhe  —  the  only  one  left  in  the  hideous  monotony  of 
masonry.  We  objected,  as  we  have  done  to  similar 
attempts  before  now. 

Presently  out  comes  the  bill,  and  lo !  our  architects 
and  builders  have  melted  away  before  the  eye  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  no  projector  figures  in  the  bill,  but  a  road- 
maker  and  patriot  Peer.  This  public  benefactor  wants 
to  make  a  new  road  into  the  park  and  dedicate  it  to  the 
public.  That  he  distinctly  advances  as  his  main  object. 
But  he  insinuates  that  he  cannot  do  this  act  of  patriotism 
without  taking  seven  of  his  neighbours'  houses,  and  per- 
haps more.  To  carry  out  this  object,  a  gentleman  of 
good  descent,  who,  nevertheless,  is  in  the  House  of  Lords 
only  an  obscure  Baron,  is  at  this  moment  in  the  Com- 
mons Emperor  Elect  of  Knightsbridge,  for  he  asks  from 
that  House  powers  so  unconstitutional  and  ill-defined,  as 
he  knows  from  history  the  Commons  would  not  concede 
to  his  Sovereign. 

The  Queen  has  a  park ;  he  proposes  to  break  into  it. 
The  State  has  its  road-makers;  he  is  for  kicking  them 
out  of  their  business.  The  nation  values  almost  beyond 
everything  else  upon  God's  earth  the  equal  security  of 


PRIVATE    BILLS    AND    PUBLIC    WRONGS.        375 

property  in  the  hands  of  Lords  and  Commons.  He  pro- 
poses to  trample  on  the  nation's  feeling,  and  on  those 
equal  rights  by  the  odious  measure  of  compulsory  pur- 
chase. To  be  sure  he  puts  forward  what  he  calls  a  pub- 
lic object,  viz.,  a  new  public  road  into  the  park.  Now, 
I  am  not  going  to  argue  the  whole  case,  but  merely  to 
give  Parliament  the  means  of  arguing  it  soundly. 

1.  His  public  road  is  not  a  public  road,  but  a  new  pri- 
vate carriage  drive,  down  which  the  public  would  not  be 
allowed  to  run  a  wheel ;  and  so  great  a  preference  is 
already  shown  for  private  carriages  in  the  park  and  its 
entrances,  that  to  open  a  new  drive,  and  not  a  road,  to 
traverse  the  park,  would  offend  the  public  and  rouse 
unpleasant  discussions. 

2.  This  "  oligarch's  alley,"  miscalled  in  the  bill  a  pub- 
lic road,  is  to  be  44  feet  wide.  The  property  it  demands 
in  the  bill  is  156  feet  wide. 

3.  The  undertaker  or  his  associates,  or  both,  are  pos- 
sessed, in  some  way,  of  property  lying  between  Sloane 
Street  and  Hyde  Park ;  for  they  are  taking  down  the 
houses.  He  solicits  in  the  bill  the  right  to  deviate.  He 
can  deviate  into  rectitude  and  buy  land ;  he  need  not 
deviate  into  built  houses  and  misappropriation. 

There  are  many  other  public  objections  to  his  "  oli- 
garch's alley,"  which  he  calls  a  public  road.  But  those 
I  leave  to  the  House  of  Commons ;  and  I  leave  to  that 
House  with  perfect  confidence  the  Albert  Terrace  Spoli- 
ation Bill,  divested  of  its  plausible  pretext.  I  will  not 
be  so  unjust  to  the  Commons  and  their  history  as  to  let 
your  million  readers  suppose  that  House  needs  be  ex- 
horted by  me  when  private  cupidity  stands  nude  on  one 
side  and  the  constitutional  rights  of  Englishmen  on  the 
other. 


376  READTANA. 

But  what  may  not  be  done  in  the  dark  ?  When  pri- 
vate bills  come  on  there  is  nobody  in  the  House  but  the 
personal  friends  of  the  projectors.  A  job  of  this  kind 
glides  from  a  bill  into  an  Act  in  less  time  than  it  would 
take  to  hatch  a  serpent,  and  the  House  becomes  the  cat's- 
paw  of  a  tyranny  quite  foreign  to  its  own  heart  and 
principles. 

This  is  where  the  shoe  really  pinches.  Only  a  few 
members  have  time  or  inclination  to  attend  to  these 
cursed  little  private  biMs,  especially  when  they  are  up  to 
the  neck  in  the  Hellespont  —  and  who  can  blame  them  ? 
—  and  so  a  very  little  varnish  carries  them  through. 
John  Milton  says  truly  that  even  wisdom  has  its  blind 
side.  The  times  are  high-minded,  and  the  high-minded 
are  unsuspicious  ;  and  so,  "  At  Wisdom's  gate  Suspicion 
sleeps,  and  thinks  no  ill  where  no  ill  seems." 

This  letter,  then,  is  written  partly  to  warn  the  nation 
that  its  rights  are  at  stake,  but  still  more  to  warn  our 
historical  champions  of  these  rights.  I  submit  that, 
without  a  prima  fade  case,  it  is  not  fair  that  worthy, 
well-affected  citizens,  all  paying  taxes  to  the  State,  should 
be  juggled  in  a  private  bill  out  of  the  unremitting  pro- 
tection of  the  State.  It  is  even  hard,  and  very  hard,  we 
should  be  put  to  the  suspense,  anxiety,  and  expense  of 
fighting  such  a  bill  in  committee.  At  present,  however, 
all  I  ask  for  is  numbers.  Oh !  do,  pray,  give  the  nation 
and  us,  on  Thursday  afternoon,  not  a  handful,  but  a 
House  ;  and  let  the  nation  know  from  high-minded  Tories 
and  high-minded  Liberals  whether  it  has  lost  the  love  of 
both,  and  lost  the  greatest  protector  of  its  sacred  rights 

it  has  ever  had. 

CHAKLES  KEADE. 
Naboth's  Vineyard, 
February  oth. 


A   TERRIBLE    TEMPTATION."  377 


"A   TERRIBLE   TEMPTATION." 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "  Daily  Globe,"  Toronto. 

Sir,  —  Three  columns  of  your  journal  have  been  sent 
me,  headed  "A  Terrible  Temptation,'^  yet  mainly  de- 
voted to  reviving  stale  misrepresentations  of  my  older 
works.  The  writer  even  goes  beyond  my  original 
detractors  —  most  of  them  now  my  converts  —  for  he 
slanders  the  character  and  sincerity  of  the  author ;  and 
that  in  terms  so  defamatory,  and  so  evidently  malicious, 
that  I  could  sue  him,  or  even  indict  him,  if  he  was  worth 
it.  But  I  know  by  experience  what  would  follow :  an 
anonymous  slanderer  is  always  a  coward;  he  would  run 
away  and  hide  the  moment  he  saw  the  dog-whip  of  the 
law  coming,  and  I  should  have  to  punish  some  unguarded 
editor,  publisher,  or  printer,  less  criminal  than  the  real 
culprit,  but  more  of  a  man.  I  prefer,  therefore,  to  deal 
with  the  slanderer  as  I  may  ;  only  I  expect  you,  who 
have  published  the  poison,  to  publish  the  antidote. 

The  anonymous  slanderer,  in  his  rifle-pit,  has  so  many 
unfair  advantages  over  the  more  manly  author,  that  it  is 
impossible  to  expose  him  without  first  naming  and  ticket- 
ing his  habitual  blunders  and  frauds.  This  necessity 
compelled  me  long  ago  to  invent  a  new  science.     I  call  it 

LITERARY    ZOOLOGY. 

Of  that  science  certain  terms  are  indispensable  in  this 
discussion :  unfortunately  they  are  new  to  the  Canadian 
public,  so  I  must  explain  them. 


378  READIANA. 

THE    CRITICASTER, 

first  pinned  on  cork  by  me  in  1859.  A  very  curious 
little  animal,  with  singular  traits ;  the  most  distinctive 
is,  that  in  literary  questions  easily  soluble  by  direct  evi- 
dence he  flies  to  cant,  conjecture,  "or  the  depths  of  his 
inner  consciousness,"  and  that  means  "  the  shallows  of 
his  ignorance."  He  is  a  mediaeval  reasoner,  who  has 
lived  over  into  the  nineteenth  century  by  some  miracle, 
but  no  more  belongs  to  it  than  the  Patagonian  does,  with 
his  implements  of  stone.  This  little  creature's  mind  and 
method  are  the  exact  opposite  of  the  lawyer's,  the  nat- 
uralist's, and  the  critic's. 

THE    PRURIENT    PRUDE. 

(First  introduced  by  me  to  the  American  public  in  1864.) 

This  is  a  lewd  hypocrite,  who  passes  over  all  that  is 
sweet,  and  pure,  and  innocent  in  a  book,  with  genuine 
disrelish,  and  fixes  greedily  on  whatever  a  foul  mind  can 
misinterpret  or  exaggerate  into  indecency.  He  makes 
arbitrary  additions  to  the  author's  meaning,  and  so  ekes 
out  the  indelicacy  to  suit  his  own  true  taste,  which  is 
for  the  indelicate ;  this  done,  he  turns  round  upon  the 
author,  whom  he  has  defiled,  and  says,  "You  are  un- 
clean." And  so  the  poor  author  is.  But  why  ?  A  lump 
of  human  dirt  has  been  sitting  on  him,  and  discoloring 
him. 

THE    SHAM-SAMPLE-^SWINDLER. 

This  is  a  kind  of  vermin  that  works  thus.  He  finds 
an  objectionable  passage  or  two  in  a  good  book,  or  a 
borrowed  idea  or  two  in  an  original  book.  He  quotes 
these  exceptional  flaws,  and  then  adds  slily,  "  And  this  is 


"A   TERRIBLE   TEMPTATION."  379 

the  character  of  all  the  rest.^^  Here  a  little  bit  of  truth 
is  made  the  cover  to  an  enormous  lie :  but,  unfortunately 
for  the  public,  the  bit  of  truth  is  compact  and  visible,  the 
huge  lie  is  in  the  dark.  There  is  no  cure  to  the  sham- 
sample-swindler  except  reading  the  whole  book  ;  but  the 
sham  sample  deters  its  reader  from  reading  the  book. 
Here,  therefore,  we  have  an  impregnable  circle  of  fraud. 
The  sham-sample-swindle,  as  applied  to  grain,  is  seldom 
tried  by  farmers ;  their  morals  are  not  the  morals  of 
scribblers  :  God  forbid  they  ever  should  be !  It  was 
once  tried  in  Reading  market,  when  I  was  a  boy ;  but 
the  swindler  was  flogged  out  of  the  market,  and  never 
dared  show  his  face  there  again  while  he  lived.  Not 
so  with  his  literary  brethren ;  they  are  never  flogged, 
never  hung,  never  nailed  on  barn-doors.  Earely  de- 
tected, never  effectually  exposed,  they  pursue  Avithout  a 
blush,  or  a  single  throb  of  conscience,  the  easiest,  surest, 
neatest,  and  meanest  swindle  in  creation. 

THE    TRUE    ANOXYMUNCULE. 

This  little  creature  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
anonymous  writers,  who  supply  narratives  of  current 
events,  and  discuss  public  measures  with  freedom,  but 
deal  largely  in  generalities,  and  very  little  in  personali- 
ties. Those  are  the  working  bees  that  gather  honey  for 
the  public.  Reade's  anonymuncule  is  no  great  producer, 
he  can  do  little  but  sting.  He  is  of  two  kinds  —  the 
anonymous  letter- writer,  pest  of  families  ;  and  the  anony- 
mous literary  detractor,  pest  of  the  fine  arts.  Both  vari- 
eties have  this  essential  trait  in  common,  they  abuse  the 
shelter  and  the  obscurity  of  the  anonymous.  The  lit- 
erary anonymuncule  often  abuses  it  doubly :  he  belies 
his  superior  in  one  organ  of  criticism,  then  flies  to  an- 


380  EEADIANA. 

other,  and  says  the  same  thing  in  other  words.  Then 
the  duped  public  believes  that  two  disinterested  judges 
have  condemned  its  favourite;  whereas  the  poor  editors 
are  only  a  couple  of  unguarded  puppets,  pulled  by  one 
unscrupulous  anonymuncule  raging  with  literary  envy. 

I  make  no  apology  for  this  preface,  because  it  is  of 
general  utility ;  all,  who  study  it  with  a  little  care,  can 
apply  it  to  a  thousand  cases  —  past,  present,  and  to 
come  —  in  which  I  have  no  personal  interest. 

Now  to  the  ephemeral  application  of  these  immortal 
truths.  I  am  a  popular  author,  bearing  an  indifferent 
character  for  temper  and  moderation,  where  injustice  is 
done  to  others,  or  even  to  myself,  but  a  high  character 
for  sincerity  and  humanity.  As  to  my  literary  fame,  it 
has  been  acquired  fairly,  as  my  very  enemies  admit : 
the  Press  has  never  been  favourable  to  me,  nor  even 
just;  the  one  incorruptible  judge  of  authors  has  used 
its  own  judgment,  and  gradually  accorded  me  its  esteem, 
I  might  say  its  reverence.  Now  comes  an  anonymuncule 
and  undertakes  to  prove  that  I  am  an  immoral  writer, 
an  indecent  writer,  a  writer  by  the  foot  and  the  month, 
a  writer  on  a  false  system,  the  opposite  of  Scott's  and 
Shakspeare's,  and  all  great  masters;  and,  above  all,  a 
social  firebrand,  and  a  public  criminal.  This  latter 
phrase  the  anonymuncule  thinks  so  appropriate,  so 
decent,  and  so  humane,  that  he  repeats  it  with  evident 
gusto  and  self-satisfaction.  Now  you  are  aware  that 
no  man  of  honour  ever  brings  such  charges  against  a 
gentleman  of  high  repute,  without  some  slight  show  of 
decent  regret,  and  that  none  but  a  low-born  villain 
equivocates,  exaggerates,  or  tampers  in  any  way  with 
facts  advanced  to  support  a  charge  of  public  crime. 
Bear  that  indisputable  position  in  mind,  while  I  dissect 
my  anonymuncule. 


"A   TEREIBLE    TEMPTATION."  381 

He  opens  liis  libel  by  saying  that  I  have  shocked  pub- 
lic morality  ;  and  the  following  are  his  main  proofs : 

A.  —  I  have  made  a  brilliant  adventuress  of  the 
Demimonde  the  most  interesting  female  character,  if 
not  technically  the  heroine. 

B.  —  I  have  thrown  her  vulgarity  into  the  background- 

C.  —  I  have .  thrown  her  uncleanness  into  the  back- 
ground, and  praised  her  by  faint  blame,  etc.,  etc. 

Answer  to  B.  It  is  a  direct  falsehood.  How  does 
this  writer  know  that  Ehoda  Somerset  was  vulgar  ?  He 
knows  it  only  from  me.  My  fearless  honesty  has  put 
an  oath  into  the  woman's  mouth,  and  plenty  of  Billings- 
gate beside.     Lie  1. 

C.  —  Behold  the  "  prurient  prude."  This  word  "  un- 
cleanness," applied  to  vice,  is  one  of  his  sure  signs. 
Illicit  connections  are  vicious,  but  they  are  no  more  un- 
clean than  matrimonial  connections.  To  apply  a  term 
which  is  nasty,  without  being  strictly  appropriate,  be- 
trays to  a  philosopher's  eye  the  prurient  prude.  When- 
ever in  a  newspaper  you  see  the  word  "  filth  "  applied  to 
adultery  or  other  frailty,  the  writer  is  a  lewd  hypocrite, 
a  prurient  prude.  Eemember  that :  it  is  well  worth 
remembering.  Divested  of  that  false  and  repulsive  ex- 
pression, what  does  this  charge  come  to  ?  That  I  have 
but  coldly  stated  the  illicit  connection  between  Rhoda 
Somerset  and  Sir  Charles  Bassett ;  T  have  gratified  this 
prurient  prude's  real  taste  with  no  amorous  scenes,  no 
pictures  of  frailty  in  action.  This  is  quite  true.  I  have 
given  the  virtuous  loves  of  Sir  Charles  and  Bella  Bruce 
in  full  detail,  to  gain  my  reader's  symjiathy  with  virtue  ; 
and  the  vicious  connection  I  have  coldly  stated,  like  a 
chronicler.  Mine  is  an  art  that  preaches  by  pictures. 
I  draw  the  illicit  love,  with  decent  reserve ;  I  paint  the 


382  READIANA. 

virtuous  love  in  the  purest  and  sweetest  colours  I  can 
command.  Who  but  a  prurient  prude,  with  no  relish  for 
Diy  scenes  of  virtuous  love,  would  distort  this  to  my  dis- 
credit ? 

AVhat  writer  has  ever  produced  scenes  purer  and 
sweeter  than  the  innocent  loves  of  Ruperta  and  Compton 
Bassett  in  this  book  ?  Yet  how  have  the  prurient 
prudes,  one  and  all,  received  them  ?  With  marked  dis- 
taste ;  they  call  the  scenes  a  bore.  Poor  shallow  hypo- 
crites !  These  scenes  of  virgin  snow  are  inconvenient : 
they  do  but  fidget  and  obstruct  a  dirty  fellow  groping 
the  soil  for  the  thing  he  denounces  and  loves. 

Is  daylight  breaking  in  ? 

A.  —  This  is  a  double  falsehood.  In  the  first  place,  I 
have  made  Lady  Bassett  by  far  the  most  interesting 
character.  Were  Rhoda  Somerset  cut  out,  the  deeper 
interest  would  still  remain,  and  the  story  be  still  rather 
a  strong  story.  In  the  next  place,  Rhoda  Somerset  is 
not  one  character  all  through  the  book,  as  this  anony- 
muncule  infers.  She  is  first  a  frail  woman  —  then  a 
penitent  woman.  Now  it  is  only  in  the  latter  character 
I  admit  her  to  the  second  place  of  interest.  Even  Ku- 
perta  Bassett  is  more  interesting  than  Somerset  impeni- 
tent. Let  any  lover  of  truth  study  the  book,  and  he 
will  find  that  no  sympathy  is  conceded  to  Somerset  until 
her  penitence  commences,  and  that  the  sympathy  enlarges 
as  the  woman  gets  better  and  better.  Yet  here  is  an 
anonymuncule  who  utterly  ignores  a  woman's  penitence 
in  summing  up  her  character.  Is  there  one  precedent 
for  this  reasoning,  that  has  stood  the  test  of  time  and 
reason  ?  No  doubt  some  contemporary  females  and  con- 
temporary criticasters  reviled  Mary  Magdalene  to  her 
dying  day,  and  said,  "  Once  a  harlot,  always  a  harlot." 


"A   TERRIBLE    TEMPTATION."  383 

But  what  has  been  the  verdict  of  posterity  ?  And  what, 
in  any  case,  is  the  verdict  of  posterity,  but  the  verdict 
that  contemporaries  might,  and  ought  to,  have  arrived 
at? 

If  fifteen  years'  penitence  are  to  go  for  nothing,  in 
summing  up  Ehoda  Somerset,  for  how  much  less  than 
nothing  ought  ten  minutes'  penitence  to  count  for  in 
that  thief,  whom,  nevertheless,  a  venerable  Church  has 
summed  up  a  saint  ? 

John  Bunyan  was  a  blaspheming  blackguard.  He 
repented,  and  wrote  a  novel  that  has  done  more  good  to 
men's  souls  than  most  sermons.  Would  this  anony- 
muncule  sum  him  up  a  blaspheming  blackguard  ? 

Kotzebue's  Mrs.  Haller  is  an  adulteress  less  excusable 
than  Rhoda  Somerset,  a  low  girl  with  mercenary  parents. 
Do  Mrs.  Haller's  years  of  penitence  go  for  nothing  ? 
Or  does  Kotzebue  being  dead,  and  Eeade  being  alive, 
make  the  penitent  adulteress  a  penitent,  and  the  penitent 
Anonyma  an  unmitigated  Anonyma  ?  Yet,  divest  the 
argument  of  this  idiotic  blunder  and  that  part  of  the 
libel  falls  to  earth. 

D.  —  He  says  I  have  made  Sir  Charles  Bassett  the 
model  man  of  the  book.  This  is  untrue.  I  have  not 
pretended  that  he  was  ever  much  worse  than  many  other 
young  men  of  fortune ;  but  I  have  openly  disapproved 
his  early  life  —  have  represented  him  as  heartily  regret- 
ting it,  so  soon  as  the  virtuous  love  dawned  on  him ; 
and  yet  I  have  shown  some  consequences  of  his  early 
frailties  following  him  for  years.  If  this  is  not  fiction 
teaching  morality  in  its  own  unobtrusive  way  —  what  is  ? 

E.  —  He  says  that  there  is  a  strain  of  the  Somerset 
through  the  whole  book,  and  that  a  nurse  giving  suck  is 
described  more  sexually  than  it  ought  to  be.     This  is  a 


384  READIANA. 

deliberate  falsehood.  That  great  maternal  act  is  de- 
scribed, not  sensually,  but  poetically  ;  and  attention  is 
fixed,  not  on  that  which  the  prurient  prude  was  itching 
for,  but  on  the  exquisite  expression  of  the  maternal  face 
while  nursing  —  a  poetical  beauty  the  sculptors,  Chantrey 
and  all,  have  missed,  to  their  discredit  as  artists. 

F.  —  He  says  Lady  Bassett  was  on  the  brink  of  adul- 
tery. This  is  another  deliberate  falsehood.  Mr.  Angelo 
may  have  been  in  danger ;  but  it  takes  two  to  commit 
adultery  ;  and  it  is  clear  the  woman  was  never  in  danger 
for  a  moment. 

The  anonymuncule  then  proceeds  to  say  that  I  have 
given  a  true  picture  ;  that  in  England  the  "kept  mistress" 
has  become  an  institution  ;  that  Anonyma  did  beckon 
our  Countesses  and  Duchesses  across  the  park,  and  they 
followed  her,  &c. :  in  short,  he  delivers  a  complete  de- 
fence of  the  man  he  has  just  slandered ;  for  vices  are 
like  diseases  —  to  cure  them  you  must  ventilate  them. 
Well,  I  have  ventilated  the  English  concubine  in  my 
way,  and  my  anonymuncule  has  slandered  me,  and  imi- 
tated me,  in  the  same  column  of  the  same  newspaper. 
Having  detected  himself  in  this  latter  act,  he  catches  a 
faint  glimpse  of  his  own  conduct,  drops  the  slanderer, 
and  announces  that  he  is  going  to  discourse  artistically. 
AVell,  when  he  gets  out  of  slander  he  is  like  a  lish  out 
of  water ;  I  wander  through  a  waste  of  syllables,  hunt- 
ing, fishing,  and  diving  for  an  idea;  and  at  last  I  detect 
the  head  of  an  idea  in  one  paragraph,  and  the  tail  in 
another  —  these  scribblers  never  can  articulate  their  top- 
ics —  and  I  drag  its  disjuncta  memhra  together  "  with 
oxen  and  wainropes,"  and  so  get  to  this  — 

Whatever  a  publisher  publishes  from  week  to  week, 
the  author  must  have  so  composed:    ergo^   Mr.   Eeade 


"A   TERRIBLE    TE]\IPTATION."  385 

writes  so  many  feet  per  week,  and  that  makes  him  a 
crude  accumulator  of  nothings.  Now,  where  did  he  get 
his  major  premiss  ?  From  the  depths  of  his  inner  con- 
sciousness. If  he  knew  anything  about  authors,  as  dis- 
tinct from  scribblers  and  anonymuncula,  he  would  be 
aware  that  we  never  write,  as  they  do,  from  hand  to 
mouth.  Between  the  publication  of  my  last  novel  and 
the  issue  of  the  first  weekly  number  of  the  tale,  eleven 
months  elapsed.  The  depths  of  this  man's  inner  con- 
sciousness inform  him  that  I  did  not  write  one  line  of 
the  story  in  those  eleven  months.  Well,  they  tell  him  a 
lie,  for  I  wrote  it  all  —  except  a  few  chapters  —  in  those 
eleven  months  ;  and  it  was  all  written,  copied,  and  cor- 
rected, before  the  Canadian  public  saw  the  first  line 
of  it. 

He  now  carries  the  same  system,  the  criticaster^s,  into 
a  matter  of  more  general  importance.  He  says  that  I 
found  my  fictioQS  on  fact,  and  so  tell  lies ;  and  that  the 
chiefs  of  Fiction  did  not  found  fictions  on  fact  and  so 
told  only  truths. 

Now,  where  does  he  discover  that  the  chiefs  of  Fic- 
tion did  not  found  their  figments  upon  facts?  Where? 
—  why,  in  that  little  asylum  of  idiots,  the  depths  of  his 
inner  consciousness !  It  could  be  proved  in  a  court  of 
law  that  Shakspeare  founded  his  fictions  on  fact,  wher- 
ever he  could  get  hold  of  fact.  Fact  is  that  writer's 
idol.  It  was  his  misfortune  to  live  in  an  age  when  the 
supplies  of  fact  were  miserably  meagre.  Could  he  be 
resuscitated,  and  a  copy  of  the  Toronto  Globe  handed 
him  at  the  edge  of  the  grave,  he  would  fall  on  his  knees, 
and  thank  God  for  that  marvel,  a  newspaper,  and  for  the 
rich  vein  of  ore,  whose  value  to  the  theatre  he  would 
soon  show  us,  to  our  utter  amazement.     Living  in  that 


386  KEADIANA. 

barren  age,  he  did  his  best.  He  ransacked  Belleforest, 
Baker,  Holliushed,  for  facts.  He  transplanted  whole 
passages  from  the  latter  bodily  into  "  Macbeth,"  and 
from  Plutarch  into  his  "  Coriolanus."  His  historical 
dramas  are  crammed  with  facts,  or  legends  he  believed 
to  be  fact.  Wolsey's  speech  interwoven  with  his  OAvn  — 
Fact ;  Henry  the  Eighth's  interjections  —  Fact ;  the 
names  of  Pistol,  Bardolph,  and  a  dozen  more  —  Fact: 
you  may  see  them  on  the  Court-rolls  of  Stratford-on- 
Avon  any  day  you  like.  His  Dogberry  and  Verges  — 
Pact  —  from  Cricklade  in  Gloucestershire;  his  charnel- 
house  in  "  Romeo  and  Juliet "  —  Pact  —  from  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  etc.,  etc.  This  anonymuncule  can  put  some 
limits  to  his  ignorance  in  twenty-four  hours,  by  reading 
the  *^  Prolegomena  "  to  Malone's  edition,  and  a  few  of  the 
notes.  Shakspeare  habitually  interweaves  fact  with  fic- 
tion; so  this  anonymuncule  has  called  him  a  liar  !  As  for 
Scott,  he  is  one  mass  of  facts.  I  know  this  from  various 
sources  —  my  own  mediaeval  researches,  Scott's  biog- 
raphy, and  Scott's  own  notes  to  his  own  works.  He 
was  forty  years  collecting  facts  before  he  wrote  a  novel. 
Pure  imagination  is  most  ardent  in  youth ;  why  then  did 
he  not  pass  his  youth  in  writing?  He  would,  if  he  had 
held  this  anonymuncule's  theory.  He  employed  that 
imaginative  period  in  collecting  facts  :  he  raked  the 
Vale  of  Ettrick  for  facts  :  he  ransacked  the  Advocates* 
Library  for  facts  ;  and  so  far  from  disguising  his  method, 
he  has  revealed  it  fully  in  his  notes.  His  ability  is  his 
own,  but  his  plan,  though  not  his  genius,  is  mine. '  Now 
I  will  substitute  the  method  of  the  critic  for  the  method 
of  the  criticaster,  and  sift  this  question  in  the  person  of 
a  single  artist.  Daniel  Defoe  wrote  a  narrative  on  the 
plan  this  anonymuncule  praises,  and  says  it  never  leads 


«  A   TERRIBLE   TEMPTATION."  387 

to  lying ;  it  is  called  "  The  Apparition  of  Mrs.  Veal." 
He  also  wrote  a  narrative  on  the  method  I  have  adopted, 
called  "  Eobinson  Crusoe."  Now,  the  private  history  of 
the  latter  composition  is  truly  instructive.  Daniel  De- 
foe came  to  his  work  armed  with  facts  from  three  main 
sources :  1.  Facts  derived  in  conversation  from  Sel- 
kirk, or  Selcraig,  who  spent  some  months  in  London  on 
his  way  to  Largo,  and  was  what  we  now  call  a  lion :  2. 
The  admirable  narrative  of  Selkirk,  by  Woodes  Rogers : 
3.  Dampier's  Voyages,  in  which  book,  and  not  in  his  im- 
agination, he  found  the  Mosquito  Indian  Friday,  and 
certain  moral  reflections  he  has  put  into  E,6binson  Cru- 
soe's mouth.  With  these  good  hard  facts  he  wrote  a 
volume  beyond  praise.  His  rich  storehouse  of  rare  facts 
exhausted,  he  still  went  on  —  peopled  his  island,  and 
produced  a  mediocre  volume,  such  as  anybody  could 
write  in  his  age,  or  ours.  The  immortal  volume  dragged 
its  mediocre  brother  about  with  it,  as  men  were  attached 
to  corpses  under  the  good  King  Mezentius.  The  book 
was  so  great  a  success,  that  its  author  tried  my  anony- 
muncule's  theory ;  he  took  the  field  armed  with  his 
imagination  only,  unadulterated  by  facts.  ^Yhat  was 
the  result  ?  The  same  writer  produced  another  "  Rob- 
inson Crusoe,"  which  the  public  read  for  its  title,  and 
promptly  damned  upon  its  merits :  it  has  literally  dis- 
appeared from  literature. 

"  The  Apparition  of  Mrs.  Veal "  is  written  on  a  plan 
which,  according  to  my  anonymuncule,  breeds  general 
truths,  and  no  lies.  What !  The  sham  certificate  of 
the  magistrate,  and  the  sham  apparition,  minutely  re- 
lated with  a  single  dishonest  purpose,  to  trepan  the 
public  into  buying  the  dead  stock  of  "  Drelincourt  on 
Death  "  —  these  are  not  lies  ?  I  congratulate  him  on 
both  branches  of  his  theory. 


388  READIANA. 

The  charge  of  public  criminality  my  anonymuncule 
rests  on  this  — "  That  I  went  upon  a  single  case  of 
habitual  cruelty,  and  traduced  a  whole  system  and  all 
the  officials,  and  did  all  I  could  to  make  a  great  social 
experiment  miscarry."  This  is  one  tissue  of  falsehoods. 
That  no  saguinary  abuses  existed,  except  in  one  gaol,  is 
a  lie.  The  ordinary  Bluebooks,  written  with  rosewater, 
to  please  Colonel  Jebb  the  Gaol  King,  revealed  a  shock- 
ing number  of  suicides,  and  a  percentage  of  insanity, 
which,  in  a  place,  where  the  average  rate  was  reduced 
by  stoppage  of  spirituous  liquors,  gave  me  just  alarm. 
I  had  also  personally  inspected  many  gaols,  and  dis- 
covered terrible  things  ;  a  cap  of  torture  and  infection 
in  one  northern  gaol :  in  a  southern  gaol  the  prisoners 
were  wakened  several  times  at  night,  and  their  reason 
shaken  thereby.  In  another  gaol  I  found  an  old  man 
sinking  visibly  to  his  grave  under  the  system ;  nobody 
doubted  it,  nobody  cared.  In  another,  the  chaplain, 
though  a  great  enthusiast,  let  out  that  a  woman  had 
been  put  into  the  "  black  hole  "  by  the  gaoler  against 
his  advice,  and  taken  out  a  lunatic,  and  was  still  a 
lunatic,  and  the  visiting  justices  had  treated  the  case 
with  levity.  Then  I  studied  the  two  extraordinary 
Bluebooks,  viz.,  the  Koyal  Commissioners'  Report  on 
Birmingham  Gaol,  and  also  on  Leicester  Gaol,  of  which 
last  this  impudent,  ignorant,  person  has  evidently  never 
heard.  Then  I  conversed  with  one  of  the  Royal  Com- 
missioners, and  he  told  me  the  horrors  of  Leicester  Gaol 
had  so  affected  one  of  the  Commissioners  that  it  had  made 
him  seriously  ill  for  more  than  a  month.  Enlightened 
by  all  these  studies,  and  being  also  a  man  qualified  to 
see  deeper  into  human  nature  than  the  Gaol  King,  or 
any  of  his  military  subordinates,  I  did  what  the  anony- 


"A   TERRIBLE    TEMPTATION."  389 

mous  Press  had  done  on  a  vast  scale  without  reproach 
from  any  anonymuncule :  I  struck  a  blow  in  defence  of 
outraged  law  and  outraged  humanity.  But  unlike  the 
Press,  to  whom  the  prison  rules  are  unknown,  I  did  not 
confound  the  system  with  all  its  abuses  ;  on  the  con- 
trary, I  conducted  the  case  thus :  I  placed  before  the 
reader  not  one  government  official,  but  two  —  the  gaoler 
and  the  chaplain :  the  gaoler  eternally  breaking  the 
prison  rules,  and  the  chaplain  eternally  appealing  to  the 
prison  rules.  At  last,  after  inflicting  many  miseries  by 
repeated  breaches  of  the  prison  rules,  the  gaoler  does  a 
poor  boy  to  death  ;  and  then  I  bring  in  a  third  govern- 
ment official^  who  dismisses  the  gaoler.  Now,  since  the 
prison  rules  were  the  conditions  of  the  national  experi- 
ment, I  clearly  supported  the  national  experiment  in 
most  particulars.  I  admit  that,  in  two  respects,  I  did 
try  hard  to  modify  the  experiment :  I  urged  on  practical 
men  its  extreme  liability  to  abuse,  and  I  wrote  down  the 
crank,  and  gave  my  reasons.  This  irritated  govern- 
ment officials  for  months ;  but  at  last  they  saw  I  was 
right,  and  abolished  the  crank,  which  was  a  truly  hellish 
invention  to  make  labour  contemptible  and  unremuner- 
ative,  and  theft  eternal.  They  have  since  conceded  to 
me  other  points  I  had  demanded ;  and,  in  virtue  of  these 
improvements,  I  am,  on  a  small  scale,  a  public  benefac- 
tor, and  have  modified,  not  disturbed,  the  national  experi- 
ment. 

Kow  let  any  one  examine  the  files  of  September,  1853, 
and  see  what  an  onslaught  a  hundred  anonymous  writers 
made  on  the  gaols.  How  is  it  that  not  one  of  these  is 
dubbed  a  national  malefactor  ?  Simply  because  my 
anonymuncule  is  not  jealous  of  them.  They,  like  me, 
did  their  duty  to  the  nation ;  they  lashed  that  Birming- 


390  READIANA. 

ham  Hell,  which  disgraced  not  England  only,  but  human 
nature,  and  eighteen  months  afterwards  they  lashed  the 
English  judges  for  not  inflicting  a  proper  punishment 
on  the  criminal  gaoler.  These  men,  like  me,  wrote 
humanity,  philosophy,  sound  law,  and  good  gospel,  in  a 
case  that  cried  aloud  to  God  and  man  for  all  four.  To 
be  sure  they  wrote  on  sand,  I  wrote  on  brass.  But  those 
immortal  things  are  not  changed  by  sand  or  brass. 
Whether  you  print  them  didactically  or  dramatically 
makes  no  moral  difference.  I  was  a  national  benefactor, 
one  of  many.  Let  me  go  with  the  rest,  undistinguished. 
Whoever  singles  me  out,  and  calls  one  national  benefac- 
tor a  national  criminal,  is  a  liar  and  a  scoundrel.  I  beg 
pardon,  he  would  be,  if  he  was  a  man ;  but  your  anony- 
muncule  is  not  a  man,  as  I  understand  the  word  —  he  is 
a  creature  with  no  genuine  convictions  whatever.  He 
will  write  against  barbarity  in  prisons,  asylums,  hospi- 
tals, poorhouses,  and  all  dark  places ;  and,  if  a  man 
with  higher  powers  writes  more  effectually  against  those 
barbarities,  he  will  eat  his  own  words,  and  defend  Hell. 
There  are  several  anonymuncula  of  this  sort  in  England, 
who  would  deny  their  God  on  the  spot,  if  they  caught 
Mr.  Reade  singing  a  hymn.  I  begin  to  suspect  this  is 
one  of  them  strayed  into  an  honester  country,  and  dis- 
gracing it. 

His  objections  to  "Put  Yourself  in  His  Place"  are  a 
tissue  of  lies.  He  says  I  have  attacked  Trades  Unions. 
A  direct  falsehood.  I  have  distinctly  defended  them, 
and  do  defend  them. 

He  intimates  I  draw  a  vital  distinction  between  my 
club  and  an  Union.  A  direct  falsehood.  I  have  plainly 
disowned  all  such  distinctions. 

He  says  I  have  slurred  the  faults  of  the  masters.     A 


"A   TERRIBLE    TEMPTATION."  391 

lie.  I  have  detailed  and  denounced  tliem  again  and 
again. 

He  intimates  I  have  not  read  the  Bluebooks  on  Mines 
and  Factories.  A  mistake.  I  am  deeply  versed  in 
them,  as  he  will  find,  if  I  live. 

He  complains  that  I  have  not  taken  into  account  the 
diseases  and  short  lives  of  the  Sheffield  cutlers.  A 
falsehood.  I  have  gone  more  minutely  into  them  than 
any  living  man  but  Dr.  Hall ;  have  pointed  out  the 
remedies,  and  blamed  the  masters  for  not  employing 
their  superior  intelligence  to  save  the  men.  "  You  call 
your  men  ^  Hands, '  "  say  I :  '"  learn  to  see  they  are  men." 

Understand  me,  I  would  not  apply  harsh  terms  to  my 
anonymuncule,  if  these  several  mistakes  were  advanced 
in  a  literary  notice.  But  the  whole  article  is  an  indict- 
ment;  and  in  an  indictment  a  falsehood  is  a  lie.  He 
has  either  been  to  the  depths  of  his  inner  consciousness 
to  learn  the  contents  of  my  book,  or  else  he  has  employed 
another  anonymuncule,  or  some  inaccurate  woman,  to 
read  it  for  him,  and  so  between  two  fools. —  you  know 
the  proverb.  "  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place  "  is  at  issue 
with  this  writer  on  one  point  only.  I  am  not  so  sloppy- 
minded  as  to  confound  the  Manchester  district  with  the 
town  of  Manchester.  That  district  numbers  two  million 
people,  is  infected  with  trade  outrage,  is  losing  its  sym- 
pathy with  the  law  even  in  face  of  murder,  and  is 
ceasing  to  be  England.  Nothing  is  more  shallow  than 
the  frivolity  with  which  Mr.  Harrison  and  other  one- 
sided men  dismiss  this  terrible  phenomenon  as  excep- 
tional. He,  who  has  studied  human  nature,  and  the 
Bluebooks,  so  deeply  as  I  have,  and  searched  the  provin- 
cial journals,  knows  that  not  two  but  forty  trades  have 
committed  outrages,  and  that  the  exceptional  ruffianism 


392  READIANA. 

of  certain  Manchester  trades  is  not  a  genuine  exception, 
but  only  the  uneducated  workman's  ruffianism  carried 
fairly  out.  That  the  Sheffield  outrages  were  stale  when 
I  wrote  —  is  a  lie.  They  have  never  intermitted.  Blue- 
book  exposure  did  not  effect  them  for  a  moment.  The 
town  turned  Koebuck  out  of  Parliament,  for  not  burking 
the  exposure ;  and  went  on  with  their  petards  and  other 
deadly  practices  ;  see  the  journals  passim.  Last  year 
they  knocked  a  whole  row  of  non-union  houses  to  pieces, 
and  tried  to  slaughter  the  inmates.  Were  the  miscreants 
at  Thorncliffe  cutlers  ?  I  thought  they  were  this  anony. 
muncule's  pets,  the  miners.  The  fact  is  that  the  Union 
miners'  hands,  from  John  o'  Groat's  to  Lizard  Point,  are 
red  with  the  blood  of  non-union  men.  In  the  United 
States  the  trades  are  already  steeped  in  human  blood. 
Is  America  Sheffield,  or  Manchester  ? 

The  masters  are  just  as  egotistical  as  the  men :  but,  un- 
like the  men,  they  have  never  had  recourse  to  violence. 
How  long  will  that  last  ?  Does  this  dreamer  imagine 
that  capital  cannot  buy  fighting  agents,  and  ten  thousand 
Colt  revolvers,  and  a  million  grapeshot ;  and  kill  lawless 
ruffians  by  the  hundred,  when  they  commit  felony  by 
the  hundred  ?  When  we  come  to  this,  and  when  the 
Unions  have  upset  the  British  Constitution  through  the 
servility  of  the  Commons  and  the  blindness  of  the  Peers, 
let  it  be  remembered  that  a  thinking  novelist,  a  lover  of 
his  kind,  encouraged  the  workmen  in  lawful  combina- 
tion, but  wrote  against  their  beastly  ignorance  and  dirt, 
and  their  bloody  violence  and  foul  play.  In  such  a  case 
it  is  either  books  or  bayonets.  I  have  tried  a  book. 
Others  will  try  bayonets,  and  anonymuncula  will  cry 
"  Bravo  !  "  unless  they  catch  sight  of  a  popular  author  in 
the  front  ranks. 


"A   TEKRIBLE    TEMPTATION."  393 

The  author  of  ^'  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place  "  is,  in  a 
very  small  way,  a  public  benefactor.  Whoever  calls 
him  a  public  criminal,  is  a  liar  and  a  scoundrel. 

That  in  "  Hard  Cash,"  I  painted  all  asykuns  as  abodes 
of  cruelty  —  is  a  lie.  One  of  my  asylums  is  governed 
by  a  most  humane  jjerson,  though  crotchety.  The  soli- 
tary asylum  in  "  A  Terrible  Temptation "  is  also  a 
stronghold  of  humanity.  Even  in  "  Hard  Cash "  the 
only  cruel  asylum  is  governed,  not  by  a  physician,  but  a 
pa^vnbroker.  As  to  the  abuses  pointed  out  in  "  Hard 
Cash,"  they  really  existed,  and  exist. 

Can  any  man  offer  a  fairer  test  of  a  book's  veracity 
than  I  did  ?  I  said,  in  my  preface  to  "  Hard  Cash," 
that  the  whole  thing  rested  on  a  mass  of  le(/al  evidence 
—  Bluebooks,  pamphlets,  newspapers,  private  letters, 
diaries  of  alleged  lunatics,  reports  of  tried  cases.  I 
offered,  in  print,  to  fehow  these,  at  my  own  house,  to  any 
anonymous  writer  who  might  care  to  profit  by  my  la- 
bour—  the  labour  of  Hercules.  I  lived  eighty  yards 
from  Piccadilly,  a  great  fashionable  thoroughfare,  down 
which  many  of  these  gentry  pass  every  fine  day.  How 
many  do  you  suppose  accepted  this  infallible  test  of 
mendacity  or  veracity  in  my  book  ? 

Not  oxe  ! 

Not  one  of  these  hyprocrites  who  pretend  to  love 
truth,  would  walk  eighty  yards  to  reap  a  whole  harvest 
of  truth  with  next  to  no  trouble. 

No,  they  preferred  to  lie,  unshackled  by  evidence,  and 
to  accuse  me  of  being  a  liar  like  themselves. 

This  anonymuncule  has  read  that  printed  challenge, 
and  knows  it  was  shirked.  Yet  he  repeats  the  contem- 
porary lie  —  which  is  now  a  greater  lie  than  ever ;  for 
fresh  evidence  has  poured  in,  both  public  and  private. 


394  KEADIAIS^A. 

A  gentleman  in  Dublin  has  recently  been  incarcerated, 
on  certificates,  in  an  asylum ;  has  gone  to  the  court  with 
a  habeas  coiyus,  and  been  at  once  pronounced  sane.  A 
Manx  drunkard  has  just  been  cajoled  into  Scotland,  and 
incarcerated,  on  a  medical  certificate,  as  insane.  These 
are  public  cases ;  so  is  Hall  v.  Seyjijjle,  where  a  turbu- 
lent and  drunken  wife  bought  a  doctoi;,  and  incarcerated 
her  husband.  Husband  has  sued  doctor,  and  got  damages. 
Add  private  cases.  A  tradesman  in  the  North  had  a 
pretty  wife.  She  went  to  a  magistrate,  and  said  he  was 
mad ;  "  And  do,  please,  lock  him  up  for  me."  "  My 
pretty  dear,"  says  the  magistrate,  "  I  can't  do  that  un- 
less you  are  sure  he  is  mad."  "  Mad  as  a  March  hare  !  " 
replies  that  fair  and  tender  spouse.  Thereupon  the 
magistrate  issues  his  warrant,  and  the  man  is  locked  up. 
He  was  no  more  insane  than  his  neighbours.  He  got 
his  discharge,  and  came  to  me  directly.  I  employed  him 
in  several  matters. 

A  respectable  tradesman  in  Cheltenham  was  incar- 
cerated by  his  wife,  and  kept  eleven  years,  while  she 
maintained  an  illicit  connection.  He  made  his  escape, 
and  came  to  me.  I  lent  him  a  solicitor,  and  told  the 
parties  interested  to  let  him  alone.  They  have  never 
laid  a  finger  on  him  since.  The  man  is  perfectly  sane, 
and  always  was. 

At  Hanwell  Asylum  alone  the  keepers  have  murdered 
three  lunatics,  by  breaking  from  eight  to  ten  ribs  and 
the  breast-bone.  The  doctor,  in  every  case,  has  told 
the  coroner  that  the  science  he  professes  does  not  enable 
him  to  say  positively  that  all  these  ribs  were  not  broken 
by  the  man  slipping  down  in  a  room  ;  and  I  say  that,  if 
medicine  was  a  science,  it  would  possess  the  statistics  of 
falls  ;  which  statistics  are  at  present  confined  to  my  note- 


"A   TEEEIBLE   TEMPTATION."  395 

books,  and  these  reveal,  that  in  mere  tumbles,  men 
break  the  projecting  bones  before  they  break  the  ribs ; 
and  that  during  the  last  twenty  years  only  one  man  has 
broken  so  many  as  four  of  his  own  ribs,  and  he  fell  120 
feet 

I  told  the  public,  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette^  the  precise 
mode  in  which  lunatics  are  murdered  at  Han  well  —  viz., 
by  the  keepers  walking  up  and  down  the  victim  on 
their  knees,  and  pressing  on  him  with  their  knees.  A 
month  later,  two  keepers  were  indicted  for  killing  a  man 
in  Lancaster  Asylum.  The  doctors  puzzled  a  bit  over  his 
broken  ribs,  and  conjectured  that  nine  ribs  were  broken 
by  pressure  on  the  breast-bone  ;  which  is  simply  idiotic, 
as  will  be  found  by  experiment  on  a  skeleton.  A  wit- 
ness went  into  the  box,  and  swore  he  had  seen  the  man 
murdered  by  repeated  blows  of  the  keepers'  knees.  For 
once,  thank  God,  we  nailed  these  miscreants,  and  they 
got  seven  years'  penal  servitude. 

The  author  of  "  Hard  Cash  "  is  a  public  benefactor,  in 
a  small  way.  Whoever,  after  this,  calls  him  a  public 
criminal,  is  a  liar  and  a  scoundrel. 

The  last  charge  is  trifling.  Here  is  an  ill-nurtured  ego- 
tist accusing  me  of  good-natured  egotism.  The  charge, 
made  with  moderation,  might  perhaps  have  been  sus- 
tained J  but  his  malice  and  mendacity  have  overshot  the 
mark,  and  given  me  a  right  to  correct  him. 

He  begins  with  the  Sham-Sample-Swindle.  He  cites 
a  single  passage  from  my  letter  to  Bushnan.  That  pas- 
sage, so  taken,  is  egotistical,  but  not  if  you  consider  the 
context  and  its  purpose.  Bushnan  was  a  humbug,  who 
wrote  at  me  publicly,  and  said  there  were  no  abuses  in 
asyla.  You  will  smile,  perhaps,  when  I  tell  you  that,  at 
that  moment,  there  were  abuses  in  his  own  asylum  so 


396  READIANA. 

serious,  that  very  soon  after,  he  was  turned  out  of  it. 
Well,  I  knocked  Bushnan  on  the  head  with  a  lot  of  ex- 
amples this  anonymuncule  has  read  and  shirked,  the 
better  to  repeat  Bushnan's  falsehood.  From  that  list  of 
facts  I  could  not  afford  to  exclude  my  own  experience 
—  it  was  too  good  evidence  to  suppress.  Yes,  at  a  time 
when  my  income  was  not  large,  I  did,  for  love  of  justice, 
humanity,  and  law,  protect  an  injured  fellow-citizen,  in 
whom  1  had  no  other  interest.  He  was  a  sane  man,  un- 
justly incarcerated.  I  fed  him,  clothed  him,  backed 
him,  and  after  a  bitter  and  costly  struggle,  got  him  an 
annuity  of  £100  a  year  for  life  from  those  who  incar- 
cerated him.  Perhaps,  if  an  anonyniuncule  were  capable 
of  such  an  action,  he  might  mention  it  spontaneously 
and  more  than  once.  It  was  dragged  out  of  me  by  a 
liar,  and  I  never  repeated  it  in  my  own  person. 

For  an  author  to  introduce  his  own  character  into  a 
novel  looks  like  egotism ;  but  it  is  not  so  uncommon  as 
this  illiterate  person  imagines.  Eccentric  characters  are 
rare,  and  valuable  to  the  artist ;  and  this  eccentric 
character  was  intruded  not  egotistically  but  artistically. 
It  fitted  the  occasion  and  forced  itself  on  me. 

"  Oh,  but,"  says  the  anonymuncule,  "  your  sketch  is 
one  strain  of  eulogy  on  the  person  and  mind  of  Rolfe." 
Was  ever  so  impudent  a  lie  as  this  ?  It  is  the  exact 
opposite  of  the  truth.  It  should  be  remembered  that, 
in  fiction,  I  am  not  a  satirist ;  I  am  one  who  sees  the 
bright  side  of  a  mixed  character,  and  I  dare  say  Kolfe 
has  benefited  a  little  by  that,  along  with  a  score  more 
characters  that  I  have  drawn.  But  compare  Rolfe  with 
his  predecessors  in  his  own  line  of  business  —  with  Mr. 
Eden,  Dr.  Sampson,  Dr.  Amboyne.  Have  I  ever  handled 
him  with  the  reverence,  the  affection,  the  gusto  I  have 


*'A   TERRIBLE   TEMPTATION."  397 

shown  them  ?  Have  I  disguised  his  foibles  ?  Have  I 
not  let  Dr.  Suaby  get  the  better  of  him  in  dialogue  ? 
Who  gets  the  better  of  Eden  or  Amboyne  ? 

"  But,"  says  my  anonymuncule,  "  you  have  said  the 
best  judges  adore  his  works."  This  is  an  impudent  lie ; 
I  never  said  a  syllable  of  the  kind. 

"  Personally  he  is  most  striking  and  interesting,"  etc. 
This  whole  sentence  is  an  impudent  lie.  I  have 
described  the  man  as  personally  uninteresting  and 
commonplace  :  an  unwieldy  person,  a  rolling  gait,  com- 
monplace features,  a  mild  brown  eye,  not  bright.  I 
have  told  the  truth  ^^ra  and  con,  just  as  I  should  of  any 
other  person  I  was  inspecting  with  an  artist's  eye. 

But  the  best  possible  answers  to  this  falsehood  is  to 
republish  the  comment  of  an  American  critic,  that  has 
come  to  me  —  "  It  is  alleged  that  in  this  character  Reade 
has  intended  to  represent  himself,  and  a  cry  of  horror 
is  raised,  by  those  who  have  never  read  '  Copperfield,' 
*  Pendennis,'  or  <  Amelia,'  and  never  seen  Raphael's  por- 
trait of  himself.  We  are  inclined  to  think  that  Rolfe 
and  Reade  are  one,  because  the  novels  of  the  latter 
could  scarcely  be  as  perfect  as  they  are,  without  the 
patient,  unremitting  drudgery  ascribed  to  the  former, 
and  also  because  the  character  is  drawn  in  a  pitiless 
fashion,  which  Reade  never  elsewhere  employs  towards 
his  virtuous  personages.  The  plain  exterior  of  the  man, 
and  his  self-conceit,  all  his  foibles,  are  kept  persistently 
before  the  reader,  in  a  style  which  seems  to  indicate 
conscientious  self-analysis,  and  in  gratitude  for  the  pic- 
ture we  fail  to  blame  the  artist."  —  The  Charleston 
Courier. 

One  of  these  writers  is  clearly  tampering  with  truth. 
Let  the  book  itself  decide  which. 


398  READIANA. 

Two  virulent  critiques  on  my  works,  in  Canadian 
papers,  end  rather  suspiciously  with  the  same  suggestion. 
This  indicates  the  same  hand,  and  is  an  abuse  of  the 
anonymous.  See  my  preliminary  remark  in  voce  anony- 
muncule.  The  suggestion  of  which  the  anonymuncule 
is  so  proud  is  this,  that  Mr.  Rolfe,  previously  identified 
with  Mr.  Reade,  may  perhaps  end  his  days  in  a  mad- 
house. 

That  shall  be  as  God  pleases.  He  gave  me  whatever 
good  gifts  I  have,  my  hatred  of  inhumanity  and  injus- 
tice, and  my  loathing  of  everything  that  is  dastardly  and 
mean,  from  a  British  anonymuncule,  up  to  a  Carolina 
skunk ;  and  He  can  take  these  gifts  away  in  a  moment, 
by  taking  my  reason. 

I  shall  be  no  nearer  that  calamity  for  this  writer's 
suggestion,  and  he  will  be  no  farther  off  it,  since  such 
suggestions  sometimes  offend  God,  as  well  as  disgust  men. 

But  this  is  certain ;  should  he  ever  transplant  into 
any  business  less  base  and  below  the  law's  lash  than 
anonymous  detraction,  the  morals  and  practices  he  has 
shown  in  slandering  me,  he  will,  soon  or  late,  find  his 
way,  not  to  an  asylum,  but  a  gaol. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHARLES   READE. 

October,  1871. 

This  letter  was  written  in  reply  to  a  malicious  and 
defamatory  libel  by  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  in  the  Toronto 
Globe.  The  character  of  that  libel  can  be  divined  by 
the  reply.  I  sent  it  to  the  Glohe^  but,  as  criticasters 
dare  not  encounter  superior  writers,  on  fair  terms,  it  was 
suppressed.  .  C.  R. 

Aug.  5,  1882. 


A    SUPPKESSED    LETTER.  399 


A  SUPPRESSED  LETTER. 

The  AthencBum  lias  lately  published  some  critiques  on 
dramatic  authors,  signed  "Q.,"  and  written  with  more 
confidence  than  knowledge.  The  article  on  Mr.  Tom 
Taylor  shocked  Mr.  Charles  Reade's  sense  of  justice  and 
propriety,  and  he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  editor  of  the 
AthencBum,  That  gentleman  suppressed  the  letter. 
Mr.  Reade  objects  to  this  as  doubly  unfair,  and  requests 
the  editor  of  the  paper  to  which  this  is  sent  to  give  the 
letter,  and  its  suppression,  due  publicity. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "  Athenaeum." 

2,  Albert  Terrace,  Knightsbridge, 

Ax)rU  2oth,  1871. 

Sir,  —  An  article  appeared  in  last  week's  Athenceum 
entitled  "Mr.  Tom  Taylor,"  and  written  by  one  "Q." 
The  article  is  unjust  and  needlessly  discourteous  to  a 
writer  of  merit,  and  I  must  appeal  to  your  sense  of  jus- 
tice to  let  a  disinterested  critic  correct  your  "  Q.,"  and 
undeceive  your  public. 

I  will  take  the  two  writers  in  their  intellectual  order. 

Mr.  Tom  Taylor 

first  distinguished  himself  as  a  scholar ;  obtained  a 
fellowship  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  "  Mutatis 
Studiis  "  he  wrote  for  the  theatre ;  and  his  early  pieces 


400  EEADIANA. 

were  nearly  all  original,  though,  at  that  time,  originality 
was  rarer  than  now.  Between  the  years  1852  and  1856 
I  had  myself  the  honour  of  working  with  him  on  four 
original  dramas.  I  found  him  rich  in  knowledge,  fer- 
tile in  invention,  and  rapid  in  execution.  Of  late  years 
he  has  been  a  very  busy  man ;  he  is  the  head  of  a  pub- 
lic office,  and  the  nation  takes  the  cream  of  his  day  :  he 
is  a  steady  contributor  to  the  Times  and  to  Pu7ich,  has 
published  two  biographies  of  great  research,  and  yet  has 
contrived  to  write  many  good  dramas  in  prose  and  verse. 
The  mind  is  finite,  so  is  the  day  ;  and  I  observe  that, 
writing  for  the  stage  in  the  mere  fragments  of  his  time, 
he  now  invents  less,  and  imitates  more,  than  he  did 
some  years  ago.  But,  taking  his  whole  career,  the  title 
of  a  dramatic  inventor  cannot  be  honestly  denied  him. 
He  may  not  be  a  dramatist  of  the  highest  class  —  what 
living  Englishman  is  ?  —  but  he  resembles  the  very  high- 
est in  this,  that  he  sometimes  adapts  or  imitates,  with- 
out servility,  and  sometimes  invents.  This  accomplished 
writer  in  so  many  styles  is  the  only  man  who  of  late 
years  has  filled  a  theatre  by  poetical  dramas.  His  last 
is  "  Joan  of  Arc." 

Is  not  this  a  remarkable  man,  as  times  go,  and  entitled 
to  decent  respect  from  the  mere  shrimps  and  minnows, 
who  write  about  literature,  because  they  cannot  write 
literature  ? 

Mr.  Q. 

is  a  variety  of  the  literary  insect  "  Criticaster."  He  has 
been  good  enough  to  reveal  his  method  :  he  went  to  the 
Queen's  Theatre  to  see  "  Joan  of  Arc,"  and  weigh  the 
author's  lines,  and  the  author  himself,  in  his  little  bal- 
ance.    He  qualified  himself  as  follows  :  he  turned  his 


A    SUPPRESSED   LETTER.  401 

back  on  the  stage,  and  fell  to  talking  with  another  criti- 
caster—  the  illustrious  P.?  —  about  other  plays  of  Mr. 
Taylor.  They  did  not  talk  improvingly,  for  they  merely 
played  off  a  stale  literary  fraud  which  I  exposed  two 
years  ago  under  the  title  of  the  "  Sham  Sample  Swindle." 
YoT  all  that,  this  part  of  Q's  narrative  is  interesting  to 
me  :  I  have  long  been  asking  myself  to  what  class  of 
society,  and  to  what  depths  of  the  human  intellect,  be- 
long those  chattering  snobs,  who  always  spoil  a  play  for 
poor  me,  whenever  I  go  to  the  public  part  of  a  theatre. 

"  Revealed  the  secret  stands  of  Nature's  work." 

They  are  criticasters ;  sent  in  there,  by  too  confiding 
editors,  to  hold  their  tongues,  and  give  their  minds  to 
the  play. 

At  the  last  scene  it  suddenly  occurred  to  "  Q."  that  he 
must  not  go  away  knowing  nothing  of  the  play  he  was 
sent  there  to  know  all  about,  and  this  led  to  a  dialogue 
I  reproduce  verbatim,  simply  remarking  that  to  me,  who 
am  a  critic,  it  reads  like  bad  fiction. 

"  '  May  I  venture  to  ask,'  said  I,  <  if  you  have  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  drama  we  are  now  witnessing  is  de- 
rived from  any  foreign  original  ? '  My  friend  was  ex- 
panding his  crush-hat.  '  Certainly  not,'  he  replied  with 
emphasis,  pointing  to  the  stage,  whereon  they  were 
roasting  Mrs.  Kousby  :  '  I  know  no  other  dramatic  author 
who,  left  to  himself,  would  conceive  the  notion  of  pre- 
senting before  an  audience  such  brutal  realism  as  that.' 
And  my  friend  left." 

Now  "  P."  never  uttered  those  words.  Every  nation 
has  two  languages ;  the  spoken,  and  the  written ;  so  un- 
couth and  involved  a  sentence  never  flowed  from  a  bad 
writer's  mouth,  it  could  only  wriggle  from  a  bad  writer's 


402  READIANA. 

pen.  However,  there  it  is  —  a  monument  of  impudence, 
insolence,  and  ignorance.  What  these  poor  gropers  in 
the  back  shims  of  the  drama  stigmatise  as  unprecedented 
realism  has  been  enacted  before  admiring  Europe,  by  the 
most  poetical  actress  of  the  century,  in  the  first  theatre, 
and  the  most  squeamish,  of  the  civilised  world.  "  Joan 
of  Arc"  was  one  of  Rachel's  characters,  and,  in  her 
hands,  was  burned  to  death  night  after  night.  The 
burning  was  represented  with  what  a  critic  would  call 
"  terrible  fidelity,"  a  criticaster  "  brutal  realism."  She 
stood  on  a  small  working  platform  arranged  to  fall  about 
two  feet  to  a  stop.  The  effect  was  truthful,  but  appal- 
ling ;  for,  when  the  fire  had  burned  a  little  time,  the 
great  actress,  who  did  nothing  by  halves,  turned  rigid, 
and  seemed  to  fall  like  a  burnt  log  from  her  supports. 
It  conveyed,  and  was  intended  to  convey,  that  the  lower 
extremities  had  been  burned  away,  and  the  figure 
dropped  into  the  flames.  Of  course  the  curtain  fell  like 
lightning  then,  and,  up  to  the  moment  preceding  that 
awful  incident,  the  face  of  the  actress  shone  like  an  an- 
gel's, and  was  divine  with  the  triumph  of  the  great  soul 
over  the  very  flames  that  were  destroying  the  mortal 
body. 

Believe  me,  sir,  no  author,  French  or  English,  can 
give  this  actress  a  nobler  opportunity  than  this  of  rising 
to  the  level  of  Poetry  and  History. 

As  to  the  notion  that  death  by  fire  is  unfit  to  be  pre- 
sented coram,  'popido,  this  is  the  chimera  of  a  few  Anglo- 
Saxon  dunces  afflicted  with  the  known  intellectual  foible 
of  their  race  —  the  trick  of  drawing  distinctions  without 
a  difference  ;  in  other  words,  the  inability  to  generalise. 
Death  by  fire  is  neither  more  nor  less  fit  to  be  presented 
faithfully  than  death  by  poison,  or  cold  steel.     Only  the 


A    SUPPRESSED    LETTER. 


403 


death  of  "  Joan  d'Arc"  by  fire,  with  her  rapt  eyes  fixed 
on  the  God  she  is  going  to,,  is  of  a  grander  and  more 
poetical   nature   than   the   death   of    "Hamlet"    or   of  • 
"Macbeth." 

That  the  performance  of  this  great  scene  at  the 
Queen's  Theatre  suggested  nothing  nobler  and  more 
poetic  to  "P."  and  "Q."  than  an  actress  roasted,  is  not 
the  fault  of  Mr.  Taylor,  nor  of  History,  which  dictated 
the  situation. 

No  Frenchman  was  ever  the  hog  to  comment  on  the 
same  situation  in  a  similar  spirit,  and  I  am  therefore 
driven  reluctantly  to  the  conclusion,  that  the  brutal  na- 
tion, which  burned  the  maid  of  Orleans,  is  still,  in  some 
respects,  at  the  bottom  of  mankind. 

Of  course,  if  the  part  was  vilely  acted  there  would  be 
some  excuse  for  "  P."  and  "  Q."     But,  on  the  contrary, 
I  hear  it  is  well  acted.     The  fault  then  lies  with  the 
criticasters.     It  is  the   old,   old,  story  :   Parvis   omnia 
parva.     When  little  men,  with  little  heads,  little  hearts, 
little  knowledge,  little  sensibility,  and  great  vanity,  go 
into  a  theatre,  not  to  take  in  knowledge  and  humanity, 
but  to  give  out  ignorance  and  malice,  not  to  profit  by 
their  mental  superior,  but  to   disparage  him,   they  are 
steeled  against  ennobling  influences,  and  bonded  to  beau- 
ties   however    obvious.     But    the    retribution    is    sure. 
"Depreciation"  is  the  writer's  road  to  ruin.     Men  see, 
in  our  difficult  art,  by  the  divine  gift,  and  the  amiable 
habit,  of  appreciation :  to  appreciate  our  gifted   contem- 
poraries, is  to  gather  unconsciously  a  thousand  flowers 
for  our  own  basket. 

The  depredator  despises  his  gifted  contemporaries, 
and  so  gathers  nothing  but  weeds  and  self-deception. 
The  appreciator  makes  a  name,  a  fortune,  and  a  signa- 


404  READIANA. 

tiire.     The  depredator  tickles  his  own  vanity,  but  gets 
to  admire  nothing,  feel  nothing,  create  nothing  and  be 
nothing  —  but  a  cypher  signed  by  an  Initial. 
I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHAELES   KEADE. 


"FOUL   PLAY."  405 


"FOUL  PLAY." 

To  THB  Editor  of   the  "Examiner  and  Times." 

Sir,  —  The  Manchester  Examiner,  of  June  25,  con- 
tains some  remarks  upon  the  above  drama,  which  amount 
to  this,  that  it  is  respectably  written,  but  poorly  acted, 
at  the  Theatre  Royal.  This  summary  is  calculated  to 
mislead  the  public,  and  to  wound  artists  of  merit.  Per- 
mit me,  then,  to  correct  the  error. 

A  dramatist  is  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  his  actors  ;  let 
him  write  like  an  angel,  they  can  reduce  him  to  the 
level  of  Poor  Poll.  You  may,  therefore,  lay  it  down  as 
a  mathematical  certainty  that  a  drama  is  very  well 
acted  if  it  holds  an  audience  tight  for  three  hours  and 
forty  minutes,  eliciting  laughter,  tears,  applause,  and 
few  or  no  yawns.  To  go  into  detail,  which  is  the  surest 
way,  Mr.  Coleman  plays  Robert  Penfold  with  the  varia- 
tions of  manner  that  difficult  character  requires.  Easy 
and  natural  in  the  prologue,  he  warms  with  the  advan- 
cing action.  His  manner  of  dealing  with  the  difficult 
tirade  in  the  fourth  act  shows  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
his  art,  and  he  works  the  act  up  to  a  climax  with  a 
fire  that  is  invaluable  to  me,  and  rare  on  any  stage.  On 
the  whole,  his  is  an  earnest,  manly  performance.  Miss 
Henrietta  Simms  is  an  actress  —  young  in  years,  but 
old  in  experience  —  who  has  often  played  leading  busi- 
ness at  the  Adelphi  Theatre,  London.  She  has  pre- 
sence and  dignity,  yet  can  be  sprightly  without  effort. 


406  EEADTANA. 

She  lacks  neither  fire,  tenderness,  nor  variety ;  and,  as 
one  example  how  far  she  can  carry  those  three  qualities, 
let  me  point  to  four  speeches  she  delivers  in  the  princi- 
pal island  scene.  They  follow  upon  Robert  Penf old's 
defence,  and  might  be  profitably  studied  both  by  actors 
and  critics.  But  elocution  is  only  a  part  of  the  great 
histrionic  art.  In  fact,  what  reveals  the  true  artist  at 
once,  is  his  dumb  play  ;  by  which  I  mean  the  play  of 
the  countenance  while  another  actor  is  speaking.  The 
faces  of  second-rate  actors  become  less  expressive  when 
they  are  silent,  but  the  dumb  play  of  first-rate  actors 
never  intermits,  and  is  in  as  high  a  key  as  their  play. 
Now  in  this  branch  of  her  art  Miss  Simms  has  hardly  a 
living  rival.  Let  anybody  who  cares  to  test  this  state- 
ment, watch  the  changes  of  her  countenance  when  Rob- 
ert Penfold  and  the  others  are  speaking  to  her.  Let 
him  observe  her  when  Arthur  Wardlaw  places  in  her 
hands  the  pearl  from  Godsend  Island,  gradually  her 
eyes  dilate,  her  lips  part,  and,  long  before  she  speaks 
the  commonplace  line  I  have  given  her,  all  the  sweet 
memories  of  love  and  Godsend  Island  seem  to  flow  into 
her  face,  and  elevate  it  with-  a  tenderness  that  has  really 
something  divine.  Such  strokes  of  genius  as  this  par- 
take of  inspiration,  and  are  the  glory  of  that  enchanting 
art,  which  is  so  plentifully  written  about,  but,  alas  !  so 
little  comprehended.  Now  for  the  smaller  parts,  which, 
as  your  contributor  seemed  to  think,  play  themselves. 
I  know  the  London  stage  by  heart,  and  there  is  not  an 
actor  on  it  who  can  look  and  play  Wylie  as  well  as  Mr. 
Horsman  does.  Mrs.  Horsman's  performance  has,  upon 
the  whole,  breadth  and  geniality.  Mr.  Edwards  is  a 
tragedian  who  plays  a  part  he  dislikes,  to  oblige  us. 
The   part  contains  few  of   those   strong   effects  which 


"FOUL    PLAY."  407 

suit  him,  but  he  never  misses  one.  The  fourth  act  of 
this  play  reveals  a  sailor  lying  on  a  bank,  sick,  and  near 
his  end.  He  is  left  alone,  and  has  a  soliloquy  of  eight 
lines.  With  these  eight  lines,  and  the  business  that  be- 
longs to  them,  an  actor  holds  a  large  audience  hushed 
and  breathless,  and  draws  many  a  tear  from  men  and 
women.  And  who  is  this  magician  ?  It  is  Mr.  Koyce, 
the  low  comedian  of  Mr.  Coleman's  company.  Is  it 
usual  in  this  city  for  low  comedians  to  draw  more  tears 
with  eight  lines  than  our  tragedians  draw  with  eight 
plays  ?  If  not,  why  pass  over  Mr.  Royce  as  if  I  had 
written  him  along  with  the  lines  he  delivers  so  ex- 
quisitely ?  Mr.  Chute,  a  manager,  and  a  veteran  actor, 
plays  the  little  part  of  Wardlaw  Senior  to  oblige  me, 
and  I  begin  to  fear  he  plays  it  too  well.  The  purity,  the 
quiet  dignity,  and  gentlemanly  ease  with  which  he  in- 
vests it  are  too  rare  upon  the  stage  to  be  promptly  ap- 
preciated. All  I  can  say  is,  that  since  Dowton's  time  I 
have  seen  nothing  of  this  class  so  easy,  natural,  and 
perfect. 

I  fear,  sir,  I  have  trespassed  on  your  courtesy;  but 
I  am  sure  you  would  not  willingly  lend  yourself  to  an 
injustice,  and  I  even  think  and  hope  that,  should  your 
critic  revisit  the  theatre,  he  will  come  around  to  my 
opinion  —  viz.,  that  ''  Foul  Play "  owes  a  large  share 
of  its  success  to  the  talent  and  zeal  of  the  performers, 
and  especially  those  who  play  the  small  characters. 
I  am,  Sir, 

You  obedient  servant, 

CHAKLES   READE. 

Palatine  Hotel, 

June  2Qth,  1868. 


408  EEADIANA. 


THE  SHAM  SAMPLE  SWINDLE. 
*^FOUL  PLAY." 

The  world  is  so  wicked  and  so  old,  that  it  is  hard  to 
invent  a  new  knavery.  Nevertheless,  certain  writers 
are  now  practising  an  old  fraud  with  a  new  face,  and 
gulling  the  public  and  the  Press. 

Nothing  baffles  the  literary  detective  so  much  as  a 
nameless  knavery.  I  begin,  therefore,  by  depriving  the 
fraud  in  question  of  that  unfair  advantage,  and  I  call 
it  — 

THE  SHAM  SAMPLE  SWINDLE. 

Examples.  —  1.  A  farmer  prepares  his  sample  of 
wheaten  grain  for  market.  His  duty  is  to  put  his  two 
hands  fairly  into  the  bulk  and  so  fill  his  sample  bag. 
But  one  day  in  my  experience,  a  Berkshire  farmer 
picked  his  grain  for  show ;  that  is,  he  went  through  the 
sample,  and  merely  removed  the  inferior  grains.  He 
stood  in  the  market  with  the  sham  sample,  and  readily 
sold  twenty  load  of  grain  at  more  than  its  value.  The 
fraud  was  detected,  and  the  farmer  driven  out  of  the 
market. 

2.  Suppose  some  malicious  rogue  had  access  to  a 
farmer's  sample-bag,  and.  were  to  remove  the  fine  grains, 
and  leave  the  inferior  —  that  would  destroy  the  farmer's 
sale  and  be  also  a  sham  sample  swindle.  Of  course 
nothing  so  wicked  was  ever  done  in  agriculture ;  but 
there  is  a  baser  trade  in  the  world  than  agriculture,  and 


THE    SHA3r    SAMPLE    SWINDLE.  409 

plied  by  dirtier  hands  than  those  which  scatter  dung 
upon  our  fields. 

3.  I  read  one  day  an  article  in  a  Quarterly  Review,  in 
which  these  two  expressions  occurred  more  than  once, 
"  the  author  of  '  Eobinson  Crusoe,' "  and  '^  the  author 
of  the  '  Lily  and  the  Bee.'  "  Now  Defoe  wrote  several 
stupid  stories,  and  one  masterpiece ;  Warren  wrote  seve- 
ral powerful  stories  and  one  foolish  rhapsody  ;  yet  here, 
in  the  name  of  science  (for  criticism  is  science,  or  it  is 
nothing)  is  Warren  defined  by  his  exceptional  failure, 
and  Defoe  by  his  exceptional  success  ;  and  that  is  one 
form  of  the  sham  sample  swindle.  [N.B.  The  dead  are 
apt  to  get  the  sunny  side  of  this  swindle,  and  the  living 
the  windy  side.] 

4.  A  writer  produces  a  great  book.  With  all  its 
beauties  it  is  sure  to  have  flaws,  being  written  by  man, 
who  is  an  imperfect  creature.  The  sham  sample  swindler 
picks  out  the  flaw  or  flaws,  quotes  them  bodily,  which 
gives  an  air  of  honesty,  and  then  says,  "We  could  give  a 
host  of  other  examples,  but  these  ivill  serve  to  shoiu  the 
general  character  of  the  worhP 

The  swindle  lies  in  the  words  italicised.  They  de- 
clare a  sham  sample  to  be  a  true  sample ;  and,  observe, 
this  is  a  falsehood  that  cannot  fail  to  deceive  the  reader. 
For  why  ?  The  grain  of  truth  that  supports  the  false- 
hood is  shown ;  the  mass  of  truth  that  contradicts  the 
falsehood  is  hidden. 

5.  A  great  work  of  fiction  is  written ;  it  is  rich  in  in- 
vention and  novel  combination ;  but,  as  men  of  genius 
have  a  singularly  keen  appreciation  of  all  that  is  good,  and 
can  pick  out  pearls  where  obscure  scribblers  could  see 
nothing  but  rubbish,  the  author  has,  perhaps,  borrowed 
one  or  two  things  from  other  written  sources,  and  incor- 


410  READIANA. 

porated  them  happily  with  the  bulk  of  his  inveiiLion. 
If  so,  they  ought  to  be  pointed  out  to  the  public,  and 
are,  of  course,  open  to  stricture  from  unlearned  critics, 
who  do  not  know  to  what  an  extent  Shakespeare,  Yirgil, 
Moliere,  Corneille,  Defoe,  Le  Sage,  Scott,  Dumas,  &c., 
have  pursued  this  very  method,  and  how  much  the  public 
gain  by  it.  Bat  the  sham  sample  swindler  is  not  con- 
tent to  point  out  the  borrowed  portion,  and  say  honestly, 
so  and  so  is  not  original,  the  rest  may  be.  His  plan  is 
to  quote  the  plagiarism,  and  then  add,  "And  tliat  part  of 
the  ivork  ive  do  not  quote  is  all  cut^froin  the  same  cloth.^^ 

He  tells  this  lie  in  cold  blood,  with  his  eyes  upon  the 
truth ;  and,  as  I  said  before,  it  is  a  fraud  that  can  never 
fail  on  the  spot,  because  the  borrowed  part  of  the  work 
is  in  sight,  and  the  bulk  of  the  work  is  out  of  sight. 

So  much  by  the  way  of  general  description. 

I  come  now  to  a  remarkable  example :  Several  jour- 
nalists not  blessed  with  much  power  of  reasoning  on 
literary  subjects  are  repeating  that  "Foul  Play,"  a 
three  volume  novel,  which  originally  appeared  in  this 
magazine,  is  a  servile  copy  of  an  obscure  French  drama, 
called  Le  Portefeuille  Rouge. 

Not  to  waste  time  on  echoes,  I  have  traced  this 
rumour  to  its  source,  a  monthly  magazine,  called  the 
Mask.  Here,  the  writer,  in  a  form,  the  modesty  and 
good  taste  of  which  I  shall  leave  to  the  judge  in  whose 
court  I  may  select  to  try  the  ^proprietors  of  the  Mask  for 
the  libel,  conveys  to  the  public  a  comparison  of  the  two 
works,  and  contemptuously  comments  upon  the  more 
brilliant  and  more  important  of  the  two. 

He  conducts  the  comparison  on  a  two-fold  plan.  First 
he  deals  with  the  incidents  of  the  two  works.  Secondly, 
with  the  dialogue.     But  how  ?     In  the  first  branch  of 


THE    SHAM    SAIVrPLE    SWINDLE.  411 

comparison  he  suppresses  y^otlis  of  the  striking  incidents 
in  "  Foul  Play,-'  and  at  least  x^ths  of  the  strong  inci- 
dents in  Le  Portefeuille  Rouges  and,  then,  by  slightly 
twisting  the  few  incidents  that  survive  this  process,  and 
by  arbitrarily  wording  this  double  sham  sample  swindle 
in  similar  language  (which  language  is  his,  not  ours), 
he  makes  the  two  works  appear  much  alike  in  incident, 
although  they  are  on  the  whole  quite  unlike  in  inci- 
dent. 

Secondly,  he  comes  to  the  dialogue.  And  here  he  is 
met  by  a  difficulty  none  of  the  sham  samplers  who  pre- 
ceded him  had  to  face.  He  could  not  find  a  line  in 
"  Foul  Play "  that  had  been  suggested  in  Le  Forte- 
feuille  Rouge.  What  was  to  be  done  ?  He  hit  upon 
the  drollest  expedient.  He  selected  a  dialogue  from  Le 
Portefeuille  Rouge  and  set  it  cheek  by  jowl,  not  with 
parallel  passages  in  "  Foul  Play,"  which  was  what  his 
argument  demanded,  but  with  a  lame  and  incorrect 
translation  of  itself.  Here  is  a  specimen  of  his 
method  :  — 


LE  FOR  TEFE  UILLE  THE  PLACE  WHERE ' '  FOUL 

ROUGE.  PLAY"  OUGHT  TO  BE. 

KERVEGUEN.  KERVEGUEN. 

Pour  rien  au  monde,  je  n'au-  For    nothing    in    the    world 

rais  voulu  vous  laisser  seul  ici ;  I  "would  not  wish  to  leave  you  ; 

mais,   d'un    autre    cot^,    quels  but,  on   the  other  hand,  what 

risques  n'auriez  vous  pas  cou-  risks  would  you  not  run  in  your 

rus  en  vous   embarquant  avec  embarking  with  us  ? 
nous  ?  .  .  . 

HELENE.  HELENE. 

Quoi  !  mon  p6re,  auriez-vous  What,   my   father,    had   you 

done  l'd6e  de  parti  sans  lui  ?  then  the    idea    to  go  without 

him? 


412  READIANA. 

KERVEGUEN.  KERVEGUEN. 

Le  batiment  que  je  monte  ap-  The  ship  which  I  mount  be- 

partient  k  I'Etat,  et  je  ne  saur-  longs  to  the  State,  and  I  should 

rais     prendre     avec     moi     un  not    know   how    to  take    vMth 

homme  condamn^,  par  les  lois  me  a  man   condemned  by  the 

fran9aises.  French  laws. 


irfiLENE. 


HELENE. 


Injustement  condamn^,  mon 
p6re  ;  M.  Maurice  est  innocent.  Unjustly     condemned,      my 

father. 

KERVEGUEN.  KERVEGUEN. 

Dieu  m'est  t^moin  que  je  le  Heaven  is  my  witness  that  I 

souhaite  de  tout  mon  ame  !  hope  it  with  all  my  soul. 

And  so  on  for  seventy  speeches.  By  this  method  it 
is  craftily  insinuated  to  the  reader  that  seventy  speeches 
of  "  Foul  Play  "  could  be  quoted  to  prove  the  plagiarism, 
though  not  one  speech  is  quoted.  Curious,  that  a 
manoeuver  so  transparent  should  succeed.  But  it  has 
succeeded  —  for  a  time. 

Unfortunately  for  truth  and  justice,  the  sham  sample 
swindle,  being  founded  on  suppression,  has  the  advan- 
tage of  brevity ;  whereas  its  exposure  must  always  be 
long  and  tedious.  But,  since  in  this  case,  it  has  at- 
tacked not  my  ability  only,  but  my  probity  in  business, 
I  hope  my  readers  will  be  patient,  and  consider  for  once 
how  hard  it  is,  after  many  months  of  ardent  and  suc- 
cessful labour  and  invention  to  be  not  only  descried,  but 
slandered  and  insulted  for  my  pains ! 

I  know  no  positive  antidote  to  a  dishonest  comparison, 
except  an  honest  comparison.  A  novel  is  not  the  same 
thing  as  a  drama ;  but  no  doubt  they  have  three  essen- 
tials in  common.  1.  Characters.  2.  Incidents.  3.  Dia- 
logue. Let  us,  then,  compare  the  two  works  on  that 
treble  basis. 


THE    SHAIM    SAISIPLE    SWINDLE. 


413 


CHARACTERS      IN      LE 
P  OR  TEFE  UILLE  R  0  UGE. 

1.  Durom^,  a  banker  and 
loose-liver. 

2.  De  Folbert,  a  daring, 
middle-aged  ruffian,  fearing 
nothing,-  loving  nothing.  The 
trite  monster  of  Melodrama, 
that  never  existed  in  nature. 

3.  Maurice,  a  young  layman, 
interesting  by  his  sufferings  and 
adventures,  but  as  to  character, 
utterly  commonplace. 

4.  raustin,Durom6's servant. 


CHARACTERS    IN 
PLAY." 


FOUL 


5.  Bouquin,  a  sailor. 


6.  Le  P6re  Lajoie. 


7.  DanieL 


1.  Old  Wardlaw,  an  honour- 
able merchant. 

2.  Young  Wardlaw,  a  weak 
youth,  led  into  crime  by  coward- 
ice ;  a  knave  tortured  by  re- 
morse and  rendered  human  by 
an  earnest  love. 

8  Michael  Penfold,  a  worthy, 
timid  old  man,  cashier  to  Ward- 
law,  Senior. 

4.  Robert  Penfold,  his  son, 
a  clergyman,  and  a  man  of  rare 
gifts,  muscular,  learned,  inven- 
tive, patient,  self-denying,  deli- 
cate-minded :  a  marked  charac- 
ter ;  new  in  fiction. 

5.  General  Rolleston,  gov- 
ernor of  a  penal  settlement,  and 
a  soldier,  who,  however,  has 
got  a  daughter. 

6.  Helen,  (daughter  of  the 
preceding),  a  young  lady  of 
marked  character,  hard  to  win 
and  hard  to  lose,  virtuous  under 
temptation,  and  distinguished 
by  a  tenacity  of  purpose  which 
is  rarely  foimd  in  her  sex. 
Upon  the  whole,  a  character 
almost  new  in  fiction. 

7.  Hiram  Hudson,  captain  of 
the  Proserpine,  a  good  seaman, 
who  has  often  been  employed 
to  cast  away  ships.  When 
drunk,  he  descants  on  his  duty 
to  his  employers.  This  charac- 
ter, is  based  on  reality,  and  is 
entirely  new  in  fiction. 


414 


READIANA. 


8.  Garnier,  a  surgeon. 


9.  Vestris. 


10.  Chasse. 


11.  Le  comte  de  Kerveguen, 
captain  of  a  vessel,  —  who  has 
got  a  daughter. 


12.  H^lfene,  daughter  of  the 
preceding,  —  a  weak,  amiable 
girl,  who  parts  with  her  virtue 
the  tirst  fair  opportunity.  This 
character  is  undistinguishable 
from  a  thousand  others  in 
French  fiction. 

VS.  Madame  Delaunay,  aunt 
to  the  preceding. 


14.  Miss   Deborah,    H^16ne's 
gouvernante. 


15.  Jacqueline,  Faustin's  wife. 

16.  Mesdemoiselles  Dufr^ne, 
Duth^,  and  Fel,  young  ladies  it 
may  be  as  well  not  to  describe 
too  minutely. 


8.  Joseph  Wylie,  his  mate,  a 
man  of  physical  strength,  yet 
cunning  ;  a  rogue,  but  a  manly 
one,  goaded  by  avarice,  but 
stung  by  remorse. 

9.  Cooper,  a  taciturn  sailor, 
with  an  antique  friendship  for 
talkative  Welch. 

10.  Welch,  a  talkative  sailor, 
with  an  antique  friendship  for 
taciturn  Cooper.  These  two 
sailors  are  characters  entirely 
new  in  fiction.  So  are  their  ad- 
ventures and  their  deaths. 

11.  Joshua  Fullalove,  a  char- 
acter created  by  myself  in  Hard 
Cas?i,  and  reproduced  in  Foul 
Play  with  the  consent  of  my 
collaborateur. 

12.  Burt,  a  detective. 


13.  Undercliffe,  an  expert ; 
a  character  based  on  reality, 
but  entirely  new  in  fiction.  He 
reads  handwriting  wonderfully, 
but  cannot  read  circumstances. 

14.  Mrs.  Undercliffe,  mother 
to  the  expert,  a  w^oman  who 
has  no  skill  at  handwriting,  but 
reads  faces  and  circumstances 
keenly. 

15.  Tollemache,  a  barrister. 

16.  Meredith,  a  barrister  of  a 
different  stamp. 


THE   SHA3I   SA^IPLE    SAVINDLE.  415 

17.  Ursule,  a  lady's-maid.  17.  Sarah  Wilson. 

18.  Marcel,   a  French  Cock-  18.  A  squinting  barber,  who 
ney,  who  gets  sent   to  sea,  an  sees  a  man  in  trouble,  and  so  de- 
admirable    character  ;    indeed,  mands  10s.  for  shaving  him. 
the  only  new  character  in  the 

drama, 

19.  An  ape.  19.  Adams,  a  bill  broker. 

20.  Somebody,  an  under- 
writer. 

21.  Nancy  Rouse,  a  lodging- 
house  keeper,  and  a  washer- 
woman, and  a  character  new  in 
fiction. 

Now  it  is  an  axiom  in  literary  criticism,  that  to  invent 
incidents  is  a  lower  art  than  to  invent  characters ;  and 
the  writer  in  the  Mask  fires  off  this  axiom  at  me.  So  be 
it.  I  find  nineteen  distinct  characters  in  Le  Portefeuille 
Rougej  and  out  of  the  nineteen,  fifteen  bear  no  shadow 
of  rese'tnblance,  in  act  or  word,  to  any  character  in 
"  Foul  Play  :  "  yet  of  these  fifteen  many  are  the  very 
engines  of  the  play.  I  find  twenty-one  distinct  charac- 
ters in  "Foul  Play,"  and,  out  of  these,  seventeen  bear 
no  resemblance,  either  in  deed  or  word,  to  any  character 
in  Le  Portefeuille  Rouge.  Yet  these  seventeen  are 
busy  characters,  and  take  a  large  share  in  the  plot.  As 
to  the  small  balance  of  four  persons,  the  two  heroines 
are  so  opposite  in  characters  that  no  writer,  whose  eye 
was  on  the  French  Helene,  could  possibly  have  created 
the  English  Helen.  The  same  remark  applies  to  De 
Folbert  and  Arthur  Wardlaw  :  they  are  both  rogues ; 
but  then  they  are  opposite  rogues.  Why,  they  differ  as 
widely  as  a  bold  highwayman  and  an  anonymous  slan- 
derer. 

Setting  aside  Incident,  Avhich  awaits  its  turn  in  this 


41 G  READIANA. 

comparison,  I  can  find  no  character  —  except  that  of 
General  Rolleston  —  which  resembles  a  character  in 
"  Foul  Play."  Kerveguen  is  a  sailor  and  the  captain  of 
a  ship ;  so  far  he  corresponds,  not  with  General  Kolles- 
ton,  but  with  the  Captain  Hudson  of  <<  Foul  Play."  But 
then  this  sailor  has  a  resolute  character,  and  a  daughter, 
and  she  is  the  heroine  of  the  drama.  Now  the  soldier 
Kolleston  has  also  a  resolute  character,  and  a  daughter 
who  is  the  heroine  of  "  Foul  Play."  The  plagiarism  of 
character,  if  any,  is  manifestly  confined  to  the  heroine's 
father,  one  character  out  of  thirty-eight  and  more,  who 
act,  and  speak,  and  think,  and  feel  in  the  two  works. 
How  far  does  this  correspond  with  the  impression  the 
sham  sampler  has  sought  to  create  ? 

We  come  now  to  the  incidents  of  the  two  works,  and 
these,  handled  on  the  above  honest  method,  yield  pre- 
cisely the  same  result.  But  to  work  this  out  on  paper 
would  take  a  volume.  Something  however  may  be  done 
in  a  shorter  compass  by  the  help  of  figures.  "  Foul 
Play,"  then,  is  contained  in  25  numbers  of  Once  a  Week. 
And  these  numbers  average,  I  believe,  14  columns  each, 
or  rather  more.  The  first  number  is  very  busy,  and 
deals  with  crime  and  love.  The  prologue  of  the  French 
drama  does  not  deal  with  love  at  all,  and  with  crime  of 
quite  another  character.  In  the  story  the  crime  is  for- 
gery ;  and  that  crime  remains  part  of  the  plot  to  the 
end.  In  the  drama  the  true  generative  incident  is  mur- 
der. That  murder  is  committed  by  a  villain  who  had, 
previously,  forged ;  but  the  previous  forgery  could  be 
omitted  without  affecting  the  plot.  The  fundamental 
incident  of  the  drama  is  murder.  The  two  fundamental 
incidents  of  "  Foul  Play,"  are  forgery,  and  the  scuttling 
of  a  ship  to  defraud  the  underwriters. 


THE    SHAM    SAJVIPLE    SWEN^DLB.  417 

From  No.  1  to  No.  4,  "  Foul  Play,"  though  full  of  in- 
cidents, has  not  an  idea  in  common  with  the  drama.  In 
the  fourth  number  the  two  works  have  this  in  common, 
that  the  hero  and  heroine  are  on  board  one  ship,  and 
that  ship  gets  lost.  But  in  the  drama  the  father  is 
there,  and  in  the  story  he  is  not ;  the  hero  and  heroine 
are  brought  on  board  by  entirely  different  incidents  in 
the  two  works,  and  the  French  ship  is  fired  by  mere 
accident.  Not  so  the  English  ship  :  that  is  scuttled  by 
order  of  the  heroine's  lover :  and  so  the  knave  is  made 
the  means  of  throwing  the  woman  he  loves  upon  the 
protection  of  the  friend  he  has  ruined.  This  is  inven- 
tion and  combination  of  a  high  order.  But  calling  upon 
an  unforeseen  accident  to  effect  a  solitary  purpose  and 
then  dismissing  the  accident  for  ever,  is  just  what  any 
fool  can  do  at  any  moment,  and  it  is  all  the  authors  of 
the  French  drama  have  attempted  to  do  in  that  situation. 
From  the  4th  number  to  the  last  page  but  one  of  the 
17th  number,  "  Foul  Play  "  diverges  entirely  from  the 
drama,  and  the  drama  from  "  Foul  Play."  The  exist- 
ence of  those  thirteen  numbers  (more  than  one  half  of 
the  entire  story)  is  virtually  denied  by  the  sham  sam- 
pler in  these  words  : — 

"  Construction  and  incidents  are  French,  and  taken 
from  the  defendant's  drama." 

Yet  these  thirteen  numbers  are  the  most  admired  of 
the  whole.  They  are  the  poem  of  the  work.  They 
deal  with  the  strange,  the  true,  the  terrible,  and  the 
beautiful.  Here  are  to  be  found  the  only  numbers 
which  I  received  complete  in  form  as  well  as  in  sub- 
stance from  my  accomplished  collaborateur,  and  it  was 
this  half  of  the  work  which  drew  in  one  week  forty 
notices  from  American  journals.     Those  journals,  com- 


418  IlE^U)IANA. 

meuting  on  the  adventures  and  contrivances  of  certain 
persons  wrecked  on  the  Auckland  Islands,  remarked 
that  History  ivas  imitatirig  fiction,  and  so  sent  their 
readers  to  "  Foul  Play."  History  will  never  imitate  Le 
Portefeuille  Rouge,  any  more  than  I  have  descended  to 
imitate  Le  Portefeuille  Rouge.  At  the  end  of  the  17th 
number  of  "  Foul  Play,"  General  EoUeston  lands  on  the 
unknown  island,  and  finds  his  daughter  and  the  inno- 
cent convict  living  alone  together.  And  in  the  9th 
scene  of  the  2nd  act  of  Portefeuille  Rouge,  Kerveguen 
comes  with  other  characters,  and  finds  his  daughter,  the 
innocent  convict,  and  Marcel.  This  is  a  good  and  gen- 
erative situation,  and  looks  like  plagiarism  in  the  novel. 
But  the  moment  we  come  to  the  treatment,  the  acts  and 
the  words  of  all  the  three  interlocutors  are  so  remark- 
ably different  in  the  two  works,  that  no  honest  and  dis- 
cerning man  can  believe  the  writer  of  that  scene  in 
"Foul  Play  "  had  his  eye  on  the  drama.  In  the  story 
the  father  and  daughter  meet  alone  with  wild  raptures 
equal  to  the  occasion  ;  a  sacred  scene.  In  the  play  they 
meet  before  witnesses,  and  the  French  dramatists  with 
very  bad  judgment  have  allowed  the  low  comedian  to  be 
present.  He  opens  his  mouth,  and  of  course  the  scene 
goes  to  the  devil  at  once. 

In  the  subsequent  dialogue  and  business,  I  find  great 
variations. 

IN  THE  DRAMA  IN  THE  NOVEL 

H616ne    sides    at    once  with  Helen  puts  Robert  Penfold  on 

Maurice,  and   argues  the   case  his  defence,  and  on  his  convin- 

with  her  father,  and  Maurice  is  cing  her  he  is  innocent,  declares 

almost  passive.  Maurice  is  never  her  love.     Then  Robert  Penfold 

master  of  the  situation.     On  the  becomes  master  of  the  situation, 

contrary,  he  tries  to  follow  H6-  and  it  is  by  his  own  will,  and 


THE   SHA3I   SAI^IPLE   SWINDLE.  419 

16ne  on  board,  and  is  shot  like  Mgh  sense  of  honour,  he  re- 
a  dog  in  tlie  attempt.  H^lene  mains,  and  the  parting  is  ef- 
never  undertakes  to  clear  him.  fected.  And  Helen  and  her 
All  is  left  to  accident.  father  undertake   to  clear  him 

in  England;  which  promise,  on 
Helen's  part,  with  its  many- 
consequences,  is  the  very  plot 
of  the  sequel. 

From  this  to  the  end  of  the  work,  we  have  seven 
numbers  of  "  Foul  Play/'  and  two  acts  of  Portefeuille 
Rouge,  and  not  an  idea  in  common  between  the  two. 
So  that  twenty -three  numbers  out  of  twenty-five,  "  Foul 
Play,"  have  not  an  idea  in  common  with  the  French 
drama;  two  numbers  out  of  twenty-five  have  each  a 
bare  situation  which  looks  like  one  in  the  drama,  but  on 
closer  inspection  prove  to  be  handled  so  differently  that 
the  charge  of  plagiarism  is  untenable. 

"  Foul  Play  "  is  illustrated  by  Mr.  Du  Maurier.  The 
said  Du  Maurier  is  a  good  actor,  and  has  dramatic  ten- 
dencies. He  is  sure  to  have  picked  out  some  of  the 
more  dramatic  situations  in  "Foul  Play"  for  illustra- 
tion, and,  if  the  incidents  of  "  Foul  Play  "  came  from 
the  Fortefeuille  Rouge,  Mr.  Du  Maurier's  sketches 
would  serve  to  illustrate  that  drama.  I  have  examined 
his  illustrations,  twelve  in  number ;  I  cannot  find  one 
that  fits  any  scene  or  incident  in  the  French  drama.  If 
they  were  all  pasted  into  the  Portefeuille  Rouge,  no 
reader  of  that  drama  would  be  able  to  apply  any  one  of 
them  to  anything  in  the  whole  composition.  Bring 
your  minds  to  bear  on  this  fact.     It  is  worth  study. 

And  now  I  come  to  the  dialogue  of  the  works.  Here 
the  comparison  is  a  blank.  There  is  nothing  to  compare. 
The  writer  in  the  Mask  dared  not  put  seventy  speeches 


420  READIANA. 

from  "  Foul  Play  "  by  the  side  of  his  seventy  speeches 
from  Portefeuille  Rouge.  He  dared  not  deal  thus  hon- 
estly with  even  seven  speeches.  And  shall  I  tell  you 
why  ?  Because  there  is  not  one  line  in  "  Foul  Play  " 
that  corresponds  with  a  line  in  Portefeuille  Rouge. 

Shakespeare,  in  the  "  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,"  has 
the  following  line  : 

"  I'll  rather  be  unmannerly  than  troublesome." 

And  Moliere,  in  his  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme,  has  this 
line: 

"  J^aime  mieux  etre  incivil  quHmportun.^^ 

I  can  find  no  such  apparent  plagiarism  in  all  the  pages 
of  "  Foul  Play  "  and  Le  Portefeuille  Rouge. 

I  conclude  this  subject  with  the  following  statements 
of  matters  known  to  me  :  — 

1.  I  have  carefully  examined  all  the  MS.  contributed 
to  "Foul  Play"  by  Mr.  Dion  Boucicault.  This  MS. 
consists  of  two  or  three  numbers  complete  in  form  as 
well  as  in  substance ;  and  also  of  a  great  many  plans  of 
numbers,  sketches,  materials  and  inventive  ideas  of 
singular  merit  and  value.  In  all  this  MS.  I  find  only 
one  word  that  can  have  come  from  Portefeuille  Rouge, 
and  that  word  is  —  Helen. 

2.  I  myself  never  saw  Le  Portefeuille  Rouge  until 
after  the  article  in  the  Mask  appeared  —  never  saw  it 
nor  heard  of  it. 

3.  The  one  valuable  situation  the  two  works  contain 
in  common  may  have  come  to  me  from  Mr.  Boucicault, 
but  if  so  it  came  in  conversation,  along  with  many  other 
things  quite  as  good,  and  the  guilt,  if  any,  of  selecting 
the  naked  idea,  which  is  all  we  have  used,  lies  with  me, 
who  never  saw  the  Portefeuille  Rouge. 


THE   SHAM    SAIVIPLE   SWINDLE.  421 

4.  I  handled,  treated,  and  wrote  every  line,  on  which 
the  charge  of  unprincipled  plagiarism  has  been  founded, 
and  I  have  got  my  MS.  to  prove  it. 

o.  Any  person  connected  with  literature  can  compare 
the  Portefeullle  Rouge  and  "  Foul  Play  "  at  my  house  : 
and  I  shall  be  grateful  to  any  literary  brother  who  may 
have  the  honesty  and  patience  to  do  it. 

6.  The  writer  in  the  Mask  has  done  this,  and  having 
done  it,  he  must  have  known  that  his  charge  of  unprin- 
cipled plagiarism  was  false  and  disingenuous.  Yet, 
knowing  this,  he  was  not  content  to  do  me  a  moderate 
injury  :  it  was  not  enough  to  defraud  an  honoured  writer 
of  his  reputation  as  an  inventor ;  he  must  attack  my 
character  as  a  gentleman,  and  as  a  fair  dealer  with  pub- 
lishers and  managers.  On  this  account  I  am  going  to 
make  an  example  of  him.  I  shall  sue  him  for  libel,  and, 
when  we  meet  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas,  I  shall 
repeat  upon  my  oath  as  a  Christian  all  the  statements, 
which  now  I  make  in  these  columns  upon  my  honour  as 
a  gentleman. 

I  shall  ask  leave  to  return  to  the  sham  sample  swindle 
on  some  other  occasion,  and  in  a  way  that  will  be  less 
egotistical  and  more  interesting  to  your  readers.  It  is 
the  most  potent  swindle  in  creation,  and  all  honest  writers 
should  combine  to  expose  it. 

CHAELES   EEADE. 

2,  Albert  Terrace,  Knightsbridge, 
August  13th,  1868. 


422  READIANA. 


'^T   IS   NEVER   TOO   LATE   TO   MEND." 

From  the  "Reader,"  October  2Sth,  1865. 

Sir,  —  You  have  published  (inadvertently,  I  hope) 
two  columns  of  intemperate  abuse  aimed  at  my  drama, 
and  mendacious  personalities  levelled  at  myself. 

The  author  of  all  this  spite  is  not  ashamed  to  sympa- 
thise with  the  heartless  robbers  from  whom  justice  and 
law  have  rescued  my  creation  and  my  property. 

{Query  —  Was  he  not  set  on  by  those  very  robbers  ?) 

He  even  eulogises  a  ruffian  who,  on  the  4th  October, 
raised  a  disturbance  in  the  Princess's  Theatre,  and  en- 
deavoured to  put  down  my  play  by  clamour,  but  was 
called  to  order  by  the  respectable  portion  of  the  audience. 

Have  you  any  sense  of  justice  and  fair  play  where  the 
party  assailed  is  only  an  author  of  repute,  and  the 
assailant  has  the  advantage  of  being  an  obscure  scrib- 
bler ?  If  so,  you  will  give  me  a  hearing  in  my  defence. 
I  reply  in  one  sentence  to  two  columns  of  venom  and 
drivel.  I  just  beg  to  inform  honest  men  and  women  that 
your  anonymous  contributor,  who  sides  with  piratical 
thieves  against  the  honest  inventor,  and  disparages 
Charles  Reade,  and  applauds  one  Tomlins  —  is  Tomlins, 

I  am, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHAELES   EEADE. 

92,  St.  George's  Road,  South  Belgravia, 
October  2\st,  1865. 


THE   "EDINBURGH   REVIEW."  423 


THE  ^^ EDINBURGH  REVIEW"  AND  THE 
"SATURDAY  REVIEW." 

A   LETTER. 

Saturday  Review,  —  You  have  brains  of  your  own, 
and  good  ones.  Do  not  you  echo  the  bray  of  such  a  very 
small  ass  as  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Be  more  just  to 
yourself  and  to  me.  Reflect !  I  must  be  six  times  a 
greater  writer  than  ever  lived,  ere  I  could  exaggerate 
suicide,  despair,  and  the  horrors  that  drove  young  and 
old  to  them ;  or  (to  vary  your  own  phrase)  write  "a 
libel  upon  Hell." 

Yours  sincerely, 

CHARLES   READE. 

Garrick  Club, 

July  22nd,  1857, 


424  EEADIANA. 


THE   PRURIENT   PRUDE. 

Sir,  —  There  is  a  kind  of  hypocrite  that  has  never 
been  effectually  exposed,  for  want  of  an  expressive 
name.  I  beg  to  supply  that  defect  in  our  language,  and 
introduce  to  mankind  the  Prurient  Prude.  Modesty 
4n  man  or  woman  shows  itself  by  a  certain  slowness  to 
put  a  foul  construction  on  things,  and  also  by  unobtru- 
sively shunning  indelicate  matters  and  discussions.  The 
*'  Prurient  Prude,"  on  the  contrary,  itches  to  attract 
attention  by  a  parade  of  modesty  (which  is  the  mild  form 
of  the  disease),  or  even  by  rashly  accusing  others  of  im- 
modesty (and  this  is  the  noxious  form). 

"  Doctor  Johnson,"  said  a  lady,  "  what  I  admire  in 
your  dictionary  is  that  you  have  inserted  no  improper 
words." 

"  What !  you  looked  for  them,  madam  ? "  said  the 
Doctor. 

Here  was  a  "  Prurient  Prude,"  that  would  have 
taken  in  an  ordinary  lexicographer. 

The  wickeder  kind  of  "Prurient  Prude"  has  com- 
mitted great  ravages  in  our  English  railways,  where  the 
carriages,  you  must  know,  are  small  and  seldom  filled. 
Kespectable  men  found  themselves  alone  with  a  shy- 
looking  female,  addressed  a  civil  remark  to  her,  were 
accused  at  the  end  of  the  journey  of  attempting  her 
virtue,  and  punished  unjustly,  or  else  had  to  bu}"  her  off: 
till  at  last,  as  I  learn  from  an  article  in  the  Saturday 
Review,  many  worthy  men  refused  to  sit  in  a  carriage 


TELE   PRURIENT   PRIJDE.  425 

where  there  was  a  woman  only ;  such  terror  had  the 
"Pruriext  Prude"  inspired  in  manly  breasts.  The 
last  of  these  heroines,  however,  came  to  grief ;  her  victim 
showed  fight ;  submitted  to  trial,  and  set  the  police  on 
her :  she  proved  to  be,  as  any  one  versed  in  human 
nature  could  have  foretold,  a  woman  of  remarkably  loose 
morals ;  and  she  is  at  this  moment  expiating  her  three 
P's  —  Prudery,  Prurience,  and  Perjury  in  one  of  her 
Majesty's  gaols. 

Some  years  ago  an  English  baronet  was  nearly  ruined 
and  separated  from  his  wife  by  one  of  these  ladies.  He 
was  from  the  country,  and  by  force  of  habit  made  his 
toilet  nearer  the  window  than  a  Londoner  would.  A 
"  Prurient  Prude  "  lurked  opposite,  and  watched  him 
repeatedly :  which  is  just  what  no  modest  woman  would 
have  done  once ;  and,  interpreting  each  unguarded  ac- 
tion by  the  light  of  her  o^vn  foul  imagination,  actually 
brought  a  criminal  charge  against  the  poor  soul.  The 
charge  fell  to  the  ground  the  moment  it  was  sifted ; 
but  in  the  meantime,  what  agony  had  the  "Prurient 
Prude  "  inflicted  on  an  innocent  family ! 

Unfortunately  the  "  Prurient  Prude  "  is  not  confined 
to  the  female  sex.  It  is  not  to  be  found  amongst  men  of 
masculine  pursuits  ;  but  it  exists  amongst  writers.  Ex- 
ample :  a  divorce  case,  unfit  for  publication,  is  reported 
by  all  the  English  journals.  Next  day,  instead  of  being 
allowed  to  die,  it  is  renewed  in  a  leader.  The  writer  of 
this  leader  begins  by  complaining  of  the  courts  of  law 
for  giving  publicity  to  Filth. — (N.B.  the  ridiculous  mis- 
use of  this  term,  where  not  filth  but  crime  is  intended, 
is  an  infallible  sign  of  a  dirty  mind,  and  marks  the 
*' Prurient  Prude.")  After  this  flourish  of  prudery, 
Pruriens  goes  with  gusto  into  the  details,  which  he  had 


426  READIANA. 

just  said  were  unfit  for  publication.  Take  down  your 
file  of  English  journals  and  you  will  soon  lay  your  hand 
on  this  variety  of  the  "  Prurient  Prude."  A  harmless 
little  humbug  enough. 

But,  as  amongst  women,  so  amongst  writers,  the  "  Pru- 
rient Prude"  becomes  a  less  transparent  and  more 
dangerous  impostor,  when,  strong  in  the  shelter  of  the 
Anonymous,  which  hides  from  the  public  his  own  dissolute 
life  and  obscene  conversation,  he  reads  his  neighbour  by 
the  light  of  his  own  corrupt  imagination,  and  so  his  pru- 
rient prudery  takes  the  form  of  slander,  and  assassinates 
the  fair  fame  of  his  moral,  intellectual,  and  social  superior. 

Now  the  five  or  six  "Prurient  Prudes"  who  defile 
the  American  Press,  have  lately  selected  me,  of  all  per- 
sons, for  their  victim.  They  are  trying  hard  to  make 
the  American  public  believe  two  monstrous  falsehoods, 
first,  that  they  are  pure-minded  men  ;  secondly,  that  I 
am  an  impure  writer. 

Of  course,  if  these  five  or  six  "  Prurient  Prudes  "  had 
the  courage  to  do  as  I  do,  sign  their  names  to  their  per- 
sonalities, their  names  and  their  characters  would  be  all 
the  defence  I  should  need.  But,  by  withholding  their 
signatures  they  give  the  same  weight  to  their  statements 
that  an  honest  man  gives  by  appending  his  signature, 
and  compel  me,  out  of  respect  to  the  American  public, 
whose  esteem  I  value,  to  depart  from  the  usual  practice 
of  authors  in  my  position,  and  to  honour  mere  literary 
vermin  with  a  reply.  The  case,  then,  stands  thus.  I 
have  produced  a  story  called  "  Griffith  Gaunt,  or  Jeal- 
ous}^"  This  story  has,  ever  since  December,  1865, 
floated  The  Arr/osT/,  an  English  periodical,  and  has  been 
eagerly  read  in  the  pages  of  The  Atlantic  Mo?ithly.  In 
this  tale  I  have  to  deal,  as  an  artist  and  a  scholar,  with 


THE   PRURIENT   PRIJDE.  427 

the  very  period  Henry  Fielding  has  described — to  the 
satisfaction  of  Prurient  Prudes  ;  a  period  in  which  man- 
ners and  speech  were  somewhat  blunter  than  now-a-days  ; 
and  I  have  to  portray  a  great  and  terrible  passion,  Jeal- 
ousy, and  show  its  manifold  consequences,  of  which  even 
Bigamy  (in  my  story)  is  one,  and  that  without  any  viola- 
tion of  probability.  Then  I  proceed  to  show  the  misery 
inflicted  on  three  persons  by  Bigamy,  which  I  denounce 
as  a  crime.  In  my  double  character  of  moralist  and  ar- 
tist, I  present,  not  the  delusive  shadow  of  Bigamy,  but 
its  substance.  The  consequence  is,  that  instead  of  shed- 
ding a  mild  lustre  over  Bigamy,  I  fill  my  readers  with 
a  horror  of  Bigamy,  and  a  wholesome  indignation  against 
my  principal  male  character,  so  far  as  I  have  shown  him. 
Of  course  "  Griflath  Gaunt,"  like  "  Hard  Cash,"  is  not  a 
child's  book,  nor  a  little  girl's  book :  it  is  an  ambitious 
story,  in  which  I  present  the  great  passions  that  poets 
have  sung  with  applause  in  all  ages ;  it  is  not  a  boatful 
of  pap ;  but  I  am  not  paid  the  price  of  pap.  By  the 
very  nature  of  my  theme  I  have  been  compelled  now  and 
then  to  tread  on  delicate  ground ;  but  I  have  trodden 
lightly  and  passed  on  swiftly,  and  so  will  all  the  pure- 
minded  men  and  women  who  read  me.  No  really  modest 
woman  will  ever  suffer  any  taint  by  reading  "  Griffith 
Gaunt,"  unless,  indeed,  she  returns  to  its  perusal,  un- 
sexed,  and  filled  with  prurient  curiosity,  by  the  foul  in- 
terpretations of  the  ^'  Prurient  Prudes."  Then  come  a 
handful  of  scribblers,  whose  lives  are  loose  and  their  con- 
versation obscene :  they  take  my  text,  and  read  it,  not 
by  its  own  light,  but  by  the  light  of  their  own  foul  im- 
aginations ;  and,  having  so  defiled  it  by  mixing  their  own 
filthy  minds  with  it,  they  sit  in  judgment  on  the  com- 
pound.    To  these  impostors   I   say  no  more.     The  two 


428  READIANA. 

words,  "  Prurient  Prude,"  will  soon  run  round  the  Union, 
and  render  its  citizens  somewhat  less  gullible  by  that 
class  of  impostor.  One  person,  however,  has  slandered 
me  so  maliciously  and  so  busily,  that  I  am  compelled  to 
notice  him  individually,  the  more  so  as  I  am  about  to 
sue  an  English  weekly  for  merely  quoting  him.  The 
editor  of  a  New  York  weekly  called  The  Bound  Table 
has  printed  a  mass  of  scurrility  direct  and  vicarious  to 
this  purport : — 

1.  That  "  Griffith  Gaunt "  is  an  indecent  publication  ; 

2.  That  it  is  immoral ; 

3.  That,    like   other   novelists,    the    author   deals    in 

adultery,  bigamy,  and  nameless  social  crimes ; 

4.  But  that,  unlike  the  majority  of  my  predecessors, 

I  side  with  the  crimes  I  depict ; 

5.  That  the  modesty  and  purity  of  women  cannot  sur- 

vive the  perusal  of  "  Griffith  Gaunt ;  '^ 

6.  That  this  story  was  declined  by  some  of  the  lowest 

sensational  weekly  papers  of  New  York,  on  the 
ground  that  they  did  not  dare  to  undertake  its 
publication. 

7.  Passing  from  personal  to  vicarious  slander,  he  prints 

the  letter  of  an  animal  calling  itself  G.  S.  H.,  who 
suggests  that  some  inferior  writer  wrote  "  Griffith 
Gaunt,"  and  that  I  lent  my  name  to  it  for  a  for- 
eign market,  and  so  he  and  I  combined  to  swindle 
the  Boston  publishers.  —  This,  in  England,  we 
call  felony. 

Now,  sir,  I  have  often  known  some  obscure  dunce, 
who  had  the  advantage  of  concealing  his  nameless  name, 
treat  an  esteemed  author  with  lofty  contempt  in  the 


THE    PRURIENT    PRUDE.  429 

columns  of  a  journal,  and  call  his  masterpiece  a  sorry 
production.  I  myself  am  well  accustomed  to  that  sort 
of  injustice  and  insolence  from  scribblers,  who  could 
not  write  my  smallest  chapter,  to  save  their  carcasses 
from  the  gallows,  and  their  souls  from  premature  damna- 
tion. But  the  spite  and  vanity  of  our  inferiors  in  the 
great,  profound,  and  difficult  art  of  writing,  are  generally 
satisfied  by  calling  us  dimces,  and  bunglers,  and  cox- 
combs, and  that  sort  of  thing. 

In  all  my  experience  I  never  knew  the  Press  guilty 
of  such  a  crime  as  the  editor  of  The  Round  Table  has 
committed.  It  is  a  deliberate  attempt  to  assassinate  the 
moral  character  of  an  author  and  a  gentleman,  and  to 
stab  the  ladies  of  his  own  family  to  the  heart,  under 
pretence  of  protecting  the  women  of  a  nation  from  the 
demoralising  influence  of  his  pen. 

You  will  see  at  once  that  I  could  not  hold  any  com- 
munication with  The  Round  Table  or  its  editor,  and  I 
must,  therefore,  trust  to  American  justice  and  generosity, 
and  ask  leave  to  reply  in  respectable  colimins. 

In  answer  to  statements  1,  2,  4,  and  5,  I  pledge  the 
honour  of  a  gentleman  that  they  are  deliberate  and  in- 
tentional falsehoods,  and  I  undertake  to  prove  this  be- 
fore twelve  honest  American  citizens,  sworn  to  do  justice 
between  man  and  man. 

As  to  No.  3,  I  really  scarce  know  what  my  slanderer 
means.  Griffith  Gaunt,  under  a  delusion,  commits  Big- 
amy :  and  of  course  Bigamy  may  by  a  slight  perversion 
of  terms  be  called  Adultery.  But  no  truthful  person, 
attacking  character,  would  apply  both  terms  to  a  single 
act.  Is  Bigamy  more  than  Polygamy  ?  And  is  Polyg- 
amy called  that,  and  Adultery  too,  in  every  district  of 
the  United  States  ? 


430  READIANA. 

As  to  "the  nameless  social  crimes,"  what  does  the 
beast  mean  ?  Did  he  find  these  in  his  own  foul  imagi- 
nation, or  did  he  find  them  in  my  text  ?  If  it  was  in  the 
latter^  of  course  he  can  point  to  the  page.  He  shall  have 
an  opportunity. 

Statement  6,  is  a  lie  by  the  way  of  equivocation.  The 
truth  is,  that  before  "  Grifiith  Gaunt "  was  written,  an 
agent  of  mine  proposed  to  me  to  sound  some  newspaper 
proprietors,  who  had  hitherto  stolen  my  works,  as  to 
whether  they  would  like  to  buy  a  story  of  me,  in- 
stead of  stealing  it.  I  consented  to  this  preliminary 
question  being  put,  and  I  don't  know  what  they  replied 
to  my  agent.  Probably  the  idea  of  buying,  where  they 
had  formed  a  habit  of  stealing,  was  distasteful  to  them. 
But  this  you  may  rely  on,  that  I  never  submit  a  line  of 
manuscript  to  the  judgment  of  any  trader  whatever, 
either  in  England  or  in  America,  and  never  will.  Noth- 
ing is  ever  discussed  between  a  trader  and  me  except  the 
bulk  and  the  price.  The  price  is  sometimes  a  high  one ; 
but  always  a  fair  one,  founded  on  my  sales.  If  he  has 
not  the  courage  to  pay  it,  all  the  worse  for  him.  If  he 
has,  the  bargain  is  signed,  and  then  and  not  till  then,  he 
sees  the  copy. 

I  never  intrusted  a  line  of  "  Griffith  Gaunt "  to  an 
agent.  I  never  sent  a  line  of  it  across  the  Atlantic  to 
any  human  being,  except  to  the  firm  of  Ticknor  and 
Fields  :  and  even  to  that  respectable  firm,  one  of  the 
partners  in  which  is  my  valued  friend,  I  did  not  send  a 
line  of  it  until  they  had  purchased  of  me  the  right  to 
publish  it  in  the  United  States.  And  this  purchase  was 
made  on  the  basis  of  an  old  standing  agreement. 

Compare  these  facts  with  the  impression  a  miserable 
prevaricator  has  sought  to  create,  to  wit,  that  the  pro- 


THE    PRURIENT    PRUDE.  431 

prietor  of  some  low  journal  was  allowed  to  read  the 
TTianuscript,  or  unpublished  sheets,  of  "  Griffith.  Gaunt," 
and  declined  it  on  the  score  of  Tnorality. 

Statement  7,  wMch  accuses  me  of  a  literary  felony,  is  a 
deliberate,  intentional  falsehood.  The  Argosy  is  sold  in 
New  York  in  great  numbers,  price  sixpence.  The  edi- 
tor of  The  Round  Table  is  aware  of  this,  and  has  seen 
"  Griffith  Gaunt "  in  it,  with  my  name  attached  ;  yet  he 
was  so  bent  on  slandering  me  by  liook  or  by  crook,  that 
he  printed  the  letter  of  G.  S.  H.  without  contradiction, 
and  so  turned  the  conjecture  of  a  mere  fool  into  a  libel 
and  a  lie. 

I  shall  only  add  that  I  mean  to  collar  the  editor  of 
The  Round  Table,  and  drag  him  and  his  slanders  before 
a  jury  of  his  countrymen.  He  thinks  there  is  no  law, 
justice,  or  humanity  for  an  Englishman  in  the  great 
United  States.     We  shall  see. 

Pending  the  legal  inquiry,  I  earnestly  request  my 
friends  in  the  United  States  to  let  me  know  who  this 
editor  of  The  Round  Table  is,  and  all  about  him,  that  so 
we  may  meet  on  fair  terms  before  the  jury. 

All  editors  of  American  journals  who  have  any  justice, 
fair  play,  or  common  humanity  to  spare  to  an  injured 
stranger,  will  print  this  letter,  in  which  one  man  defends 
himself  against  many ;  and  will  be  good  enough  to 
accept  my  thanks  for  the  same  in  this  writing. 

CHAELES   EEADE. 

3,  Albert  Terrace, 

Hyde  Park,  London. 

P.S.  I  demand  as  my  right  the  undivided  honour  of 
all  the  insults  that  have  been  misdirected  against  Messrs. 
Ticknor  and  Fields,  of  Boston.     Those  gentlemen  have 


432  READIANA. 

had  no  alternative  :  they  could  not  bow  to  slander,  and 
discontinue  "  Griffith  Gaunt "  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly ^ 
without  breaking  faith  with  me,  and  driving  their  sub- 
scribers to  The  Argosy.  The  whole  credit,  and  dis- 
credit, of  "  Griffith  Gaunt,"  my  masterpiece,  belongs  to 
me,  its  sole  author,  and  original  vendor. 


SECOND-HAND   LIBEL.  433 


SECOND-HAND  LIBEL. 

To  THE  Editor  op  the  "  Globe." 

Sir,  —  You  have  read  my  letter  to  the  American 
Press,  cited  one  paragraph,  and  perverted  that  from  its 
true  intention,  by  suppressing  its  context.  By  this 
means  you  exaggerate  my  arrogance,  and  stir  the  bile  of 
the  publishers.  I  must  request  you  to  be  more  scrupu- 
lous, and  to  print  the  whole  truth.  The  Round  Table 
had  stated  that  " '  Griffith  Gaunt '  was  declined  by  some 
of  the  lowest  sensational  weekly  papers  of  New  York, 
on  the  ground  that  they  did  not  dare  to  undertake  its 
publication."  This  was  a  monstrous  piece  of  insolence  ; 
and  I  had  to  show  a  distant  public  that  it  must  be  a 
falsehood.  But  this  I  had  no  means  whatever  of  doing, 
except  by  revealing  my  real  way  of  treating  with  traders 
at  home  and  abroad.  You  are  welcome  to  blarney  the 
publishers  by  telling  them  that  artists  (penny-a-liners 
excepted)  write  for  money,  but  publishers  publish  for 
glory.  I  cannot  go  quite  this  length  with  you,  not 
wanting  their  advertisements ;  but  still  I  do  not  wish  to 
affront  these  gentlemen  without  provocation,  and  so  I 
insist  on  your  printing  this  explanation,  which  your  own 
disingenuousness  has  rendered  necessary. 

On  the  17th  October  "  Griffith  Gaunt  "  was  published 
in  three  volumes ;  on  the  19th  a  copy  was  probably 
in  your  hands.  On  that  day  you  revived  and  cir- 
culated  a   slander   that   tends  to  injure   its   sale  very 


434  READIANA. 

seriously,  and  to  destroy  the  personal  character  of  its 
author :  you  announced  in  your  columns  that  ''  an 
American  critic  declares  the  story  to  he  indecent  and  im- 
moral ;  and  thaty  on  this  point,  having  vainly  attempted 
to  read  it,  you  offer  no  opinion." 

Now  it  may  be  very  polite  of  cold  hashed  mutton  to 
affect  a  singular  contempt  for  venison  :  but  in  your  case 
it  is  not  reasonable ;  you  are  familiar  with  drudgery  ; 
you  contrive  to  read  dozens  of  novels  that  are  the  very 
offal  of  the  human  mind ;  ay,  and  to  praise  them  too. 
You  know  why. 

Now,  advertisements  are  a  fine  thing  ;  but  justice  is 
a  finer,  whatever  you  may  think.  And  justice  required 
of  you  either  to  hold  your  tongue  about  "  Griffith 
Gaunt,"  or  else  to  read  it. 

But  even  assuming  that  you  really  had  not  the  brains 
to  read  "  Griffith  Gaunt "  for  pleasure,  nor  yet  the  self- 
respect  and  prudence  to  wade  through  it  before  lending 
your  columns  to  its  defamation,  at  least  you  have  read 
my  letter  to  the  American  press ;  and,  having  read  that, 
you  cannot  but  suspect  this  charge  of  immorality  and  in- 
decency to  be  a  libel  and  a  lie.  Yet  you  have  circulated 
the  calumny  all  the  same,  and  suppressed  the  refu- 
tation. 

I  am  afraid  the  truth  is,  you  have  got  into  your  head 
that  the  law  will  allow  you  to  indulge  a  perverse  dis- 
position, by  defaming  and  blackening  the  moral  char- 
acter of  a  respected  author,  provided  you  use  another 
man's  blacking.  Pure  chimera!  The  law  draws  no 
such  distinction.  It  serves  tale-bearers  with  the  same 
sauce  as  tale-makers ;  it  protects  honest  men  alike 
against  the  originators  and  the  reckless  circulators  of 
calumny.     Believe  me,  your  only  chances  to  avoid  very 


SECOND-HAND    LIBEL.  "  435 

serious  consequences  are  two  :  you  must  either  meet  me 
before  a  jury,  and  justify  the  American  libel  you  have 
Anglicised  and  circulated ;  or  else  you  must  contradict 
it  at  once,  and  apologise  to  the  man  you  have  wronged. 
I  offer  you  three  days,  to  read  "  Grif&th  Gaunt "  and  de- 
cide upon  your  course.  If  at  the  end  of  that  time,  you 
do  not  distinctly  and  categorically  state  that  "  Griffith 
Gaunt "  is  not  an  indecent  and  immoral  book  —  and 
apologise  to  its  author  —  I  shall  sue  the  proprietor  of 
the  Globe,  as  I  am  suing  the  proprietor  of  the  London 
Review,  for  composing  and  printing  an  American  libel 
with  English  type,  alid  then  publishing  and  selling  it 
in  English  columns ;  in  other  words,  for  collecting 
foreign  dirt  with  English  hands,  and  flinging  it  upon 
the  personal  character  of  an  English  citizen. 

CHAKLES  EEADE. 

5,  Albert  Terrace, 

Octoh^  22nd,  1866. 

The  editor  of  the  Globe  having  made  public  comments 
on  this  letter,  yet  kept  the  letter  private,  the  writer  re- 
quests less  unscrupulous  editors  to  repair  this  injustice. 


436  KEADIAJNA. 


*^  FACTS  MUST  BE  FACED." 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "  Times." 

Sir,  —  The  Times  of  the  24th  of  August  contains  a 
notice  of  "  A  Terrible  Temptation,"  done  upon  a  new 
plan.  It  is  a  careful  synopsis  of  all  the  main  incidents 
in  my  story,  only  my  abridger  has  divested  them  of 
every  charm.  It  is  rather  hard  my  name  should  be  at- 
tached to  a  bad  story  told  by  another  man  when  I  have 
told  a  goodish  one  with  the  same  materials  ;  but  I  con- 
sole myself  by  reflecting  that  the  same  ingenious  process 
applied  to  Homer's  Iliad  would  prove  it  a  contemptible 
work.  There  is  something  more  serious,  reflecting  on 
me  both  as  a  writer  and  a  man,  which  I  cannot  leave 
uncontradicted  in  columns  so  powerful  as  yours.  My 
abridger  has  said  that  I  have  written  about  things  which 
should  not  be  spoken  of,  much  less  written  about  —  al- 
luding to  my  sketch  of  Rhoda  Somerset  —  and  that  in- 
nocent girls  ought  not  to  be  informed  on  such  subjects. 
He  even  hints  that  mothers  would  do  well  to  forbid  my 
first  volume  to  their  unmarried  daughters.  You  must 
admit,  sir,  this  is  a  very  serious  thing  to  say  in  print, 
and  very  cruel  to  a  writer  of  my  age  ;  then  do,  please, 
give  me  fair  play  for  once,  and  let  me  be  heard  in  reply. 
The  character  of  Rhoda  Somerset  was  not  invented  by 
me,  but  copied  from  a  master  hand.  It  was  you  who 
first  introduced  her,  ponies  and  all,  to  the  public,  on  the 
3rd  day  of  July,  1862,  in  an  admirable  letter,  headed 


"FACTS   MUST   BE   FACED."  437 

'^Anonyjna."  On  another  occasion  you  discussed  the 
whole  subject,  day  after  day,  in  leaders  and  a  vast  cor- 
respondence, so  that  for  one  lady  who  knows  about  the 
demi-monde  from  my  pages,  twenty  know  a  great  deal 
more  from  yours.  Should  this  lose  you  the  esteem  of 
my  abridger,  permit  me  to  offer  you  as  a  small  substi- 
tute, the  thanks  of  a  better  judge.  You  did  your  duty 
to  the  puplic  in  1862,  as  you  had  often  done  it  before,  and 
were  true  to  your  own  invaluable  maxim,  ^'  Facts  must 
be  faced."  For  18  years,  at  least,  the  journal  you  con- 
duct so  ably  has  been  my  preceptor,  and  the  main  source 
of  my  works  —  at  all  events  of  the  most  approved.  A 
noble  passage  in  the  Tunes  of  September  7  or  8,  1853, 
touched  my  heart,  inflamed  my  imagination,  and  was 
the  germ  of  my  first  important  work,  "  It  is  Never  Too 
Late  to  Mend."  That  column,  a  monument  of  head, 
heart,  and  English,  stands  now  dramatised  in  my  pages, 
and  embellishes  the  work  it  had  inspired.  Some  years 
later  you  put  forth  an  able  and  eloquent  leader  on  pri- 
vate asylums,  and  detailed  the  sufferings  there  inflicted 
on  persons  known  to  you.  This  took  root  in  me,  and 
brought  forth  its  fruit  in  the  second  volume  of  "  Hard 
Cash."  Later  still,  your  hearty  and  able,  but  temperate 
leaders,  upon  trades  unions  and  trade  outrages  incited 
me  to  an  ample  study  of  that  great  subject,  so  fit  for 
fiction  of  the  higher  order,  though  not  adapted  to  the 
narrow  minds  of  bread-and-butter  misses,  nor  of  the 
criticasters  who  echo  those  young  ladies'  idea  of  fiction 
and  its  limits,  and  thus  "  Put  Yourself  in  His  Place " 
was  written.  Of  "  A  Terrible  Temptation,"  the  leading 
idea  came  to  me  from  the  Times  —  viz.,  from  the  report 
of  a  certain  trial,  with  the  comments  of  counsel,  and  the 
remarkable  judgment  delivered  by  Mr.  Justice   Byles. 


438  EEADIANA. 

The  character  of  Rhoda  Somerset  I  culled  from  your 
pages,  and  having  observed  with  what  firmness,  yet  cold- 
ness, you  treated  that  character  and  topic,  I  have  kept 
your  method  in  view,  and,  at  all  events,  tried  to  imitate 
it.  Whatever  warmth  I  have  shown  is  in  the  scenes  of 
virtuous  love ;  in  the  Somerset's  scenes  I  am  cold  and 
sarcastic.  Up  to  the  period  of  her  repentance  how  do  I 
treat  this  character?  Do  I  whitewash  the  hussy,  or 
make  her  a  well-bred,  delicate-minded  woman,  as  your 
refined  and  immoral  writers  would  ?  I  present  her  illit- 
erate, coarse,  vain,  with  good  impulses,  a  bad  temper, 
and  a  Billingsgate  tongue.  In  close  contrast  to  this  un- 
attractive photograph  I  am  careful  to  place  my  portrait 
of  an  English  virgin,  drawn  in  the  sweetest  colours  my 
rude  art  can  command,  that  every  honest  reader  may  see 
on  which  side  my  sympathies  lie,  and  be  attracted  to 
virtue  by  the  road  of  comparison.  Believe  me,  sir,  a 
thousand  innocent  girls  are  at  this  moment  being  cor- 
rupted by  writers  of  their  own  sex,  with  novels  instinc- 
tively adapted  to  the  female  reader,  to  her  excessive 
sexuality,  and  her  sense  of  propriety.  These  writers, 
being  women,  know  how  to  work  on  the  former  without 
alarming  the  latter,  and  so,  by  fine  degrees  and  with 
soft  insidious  pertinacity,  they  reconcile  their  female 
readers  to  illicit  love,  and  shed  a  mild  lustre  over 
adultery  itself.  Yet  so  destitute  of  the  true  critical  fac- 
ulty are  the  criticasters  of  the  day  that  these  canny  corrup- 
ters of  female  youth  escape  censure ;  it  has  gone  astray 
after  a  writer  in  whose  hands  vice  startles  and  offends, 
not  captivates.  My  pen  has  never  corrupted  a  soul  j  it 
never  will,  it  never  can,  till  water  shall  run  uphill. 

Should  this  argument  fall  into  abler  hands  than  an 
abridger's,  I  expect  to  be  told,  not  that  it  is  the  duty 


"FACTS   MUST   BE   FACED."  439 

of  air  writers  to  ignore  certain  vices,  and  so  do  their 
best  to  perpetuate  them,  but  that  many  subjects  open 
to  the  journalist  are  closed  to  the  novelist.  This  is 
true  and  reasonable.  The  answer  is  —  journals  must, 
of  necessity,  report  in  their  small  type  some  crimes  and 
vices  quite  unfit  to  be  mentioned  in  a  novel ;  but  that  a 
journalist  has  any  right  to  put  into  his  leaded  type  and 
to  amplify,  discuss,  and  dwell  upon  any  subject  what- 
ever, and  that  the  poet  or  the  novelist  has  not  an  equal 
right  to  deal  with  that  subject  in  fiction,  this  is  monstrous 
and  the  mere  delusion  of  a  rabid  egotism. 

Since,  therefore,  I  have  taken  Anonyma  from  your 
hands  and  have  presented  her  in  no  voluptuous  scenes, 
and  have  made  her  a  repulsive  character  until  she  re- 
pents, no  mother  need  forbid  my  book  to  her  daughter ; 
at  all  events,  until  she  has  forbidden  her  daughters  to 
enter  Hyde  Park  and  the  Times  to  enter  her  drawing- 
room,  and  has  locked  up  every  Bible  on  her  premises. 
I  have  the  honour  to  be.  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant  and  pupil, 

CHARLES  READE. 

2,  Albert  Terrace,  Knightsbridge, 
August  26th,  1871. 

Sir,  —  Those  who  read  the  late  controversy  between 
the  Times  and  me  must,  I  think,  have  been  surprised 
and  somewhat  shocked  —  if  they  admire  the  Times  as 
much  as  I  do  —  at  its  rude  and  ungenerous  reply  to  a 
courteous  letter,  in  which  I  taught  it  that  great  lesson 
of  superior  minds  —  appreciation.  A  retort  so  conceited, 
so  silly,  and  so  rude,  entitled  me  to  a  reply.  I  sent  a 
short  one ;  it  is  suppressed.     This  is  foul  play :  and,  as 


440  READIANA. 

Englishmen  in  general  abhor  foul  play,  I  venture  to  ask 
you  to  give  publicity  to  these  few  lines,  which,  mild  as 
they  are,  the  editor  of  the  Times  had  not  the  courage  to 
face. 

"FACTS   MUST   BE   FACED." 

Sir,  —  My  generous  tribute  to  the  Times  referred  to 
those  able  men  who  write  in  the  Times  on  public  ques- 
tions —  not  to  the  small  fry,  who  write  about  literature 
because  they  cannot  write  literature.  I  touched  my  hat 
to  the  Tritons  of  the  Times,  not  to  the  minnows : 
yet  one  of  these  latter  has  coolly  adopted  the  compliment, 
and  actually  made  it  a  handle  for  impertinence  that  out- 
rages truth  and  common  decency.  This  is  base ;  and  I 
wonder  you  could  be  betrayed  into  lending  your  name 
to  it.  Where  gentlemen  are  concerned,  appreciation  on 
the  one  side  begets  decent  civility  on  the  other.  I  shall 
not  descend  to  bandy  invectives  with  my  inferior,  but 
shall  pick  his  one  grain  of  argument  out  of  his  peck  of 
scurrility.  I  have  driven  him  from  his  first  position, 
which  was,  that  nobody  ought  to  print  anything  about 
Anonyma.  Now  that  he  finds  who  first  introduced  her 
to  the  public,  he  sings  quite  another  song.  "  Journals," 
says  he,  "  deal  in  such  facts  as  these,  but  not  in  fictions." 
This  is  a  distinction  without  a  difference.  It  does  not 
matter  one  straw  whether  a  young  lady  reads  facts  about 
Anonyma,  or  figments  founded  on  facts,  for  the  effect  on 
her  mind  is  precisely  the  same  in  both  cases.  The  dis- 
tinction is  not  only  muddle-headed,  but  inapplicable; 
for  the  Times  has  done  a  little  fiction  in  this  thing.  Of 
the  letters  printed  in  the  Times  about  the  Demi-^nonde, 
a  good  many  were  written  to  order  by  the  staff  of  the 
Timesy  though  signed  "  Paterfamilias,"  "  A   Belgravian 


"FACTS   MUST    BE    FACED."  4^1 

Mother,"  or  what  not.  Now  that  is  fiction  —  fiction  as 
pure  as  anything  in  "  A  Terrible  Temptation."  The  late 
Mr.  Joseph  Addison  did  mightily  affect  this  form ;  he 
wrote  himself  letters  from  coquettes  and  other  sprightly 
correspondents,  and  so  enlivened  his  didactic  coliunns ; 
for  Fiction  improves  whatever  it  touches.  Your  reviewer 
now  hangs  to  his  chimera  by  one  thread.  "  Ours,"  says 
he,  "  are  public  duties ;  his  are  private."  So  much  for 
young  gentlemen  writing  about  literature  with  no  knowl- 
edge of  the  business.  "Private!^'  Why,  my  English 
circulation  is  larger  than  that  of  the  Tiriies  ;  and  in  the 
United  States  three  publishers  have  already  sold  three 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  copies  of  this  novel  — 
which,  I  take  it,  is  about  thirty  times  the  circulation  of 
the  Times  in  the  United  States,  and  nearly  six  times  its 
English  circulation. 

Writing  for  so  vast  a  variety  of  human  beings,  for 
more  than  one  great  nation,  and  for  more  than  one 
generation,  I  cannot  afford  to  adopt  novel  and  narrow 
views  of  my  great  art ;  I  cannot  consent  to  make  myself, 
by  artificial  contraction,  smaller  than  the  journalists. 
The  world  is  big  enough  for  a  few  creators  as  well  as 
for  a  shoal  of  commentators.  I  do  not  howl  because  two 
thousand  journalists  deal,  in  their  leaded  type,  with 
Lunacy,  Prisons,  Trades  Unions,  Divorce,  Murder,  Anon- 
yma,  and  other  great  facts;  and  those  who  aspire  to 
represent  so  large  a  body  of  sensible  men,  should  bridle 
their  egotism,  encourage  their  pitiable  jealousy^  and 
cease  to  howl  because  five  or  six  masters  of  Fiction  have 
the  judgment  and  the  skill  to  weave  the  recorded  facts, 
and  published  characters,  of  this  great  age,  into  the 
forms  of  Art.  Your  obedient  servant, 

CHAELES   EEADE. 


442  BEADIANA. 


DIALOGUE  BETWEEN  A  JUDGE  AND  A 

GAOLER. 

To  THE  Editor  of  the  "Daily  Telegraph.'* 

Sir, —  At  Christmas  imagination  runs  rife;  Panto- 
mimes threaten,  wherein  Wisdom  mil  be  kept  within 
bounds  by  Fancy ;  and  even  in  your  columns  I  have  just 
read  a  Dream,  and  found  it  interesting.  May  I  then 
profit  by  your  temporary  leniency  and  intrude  into  the 
sacred  Telegraph  a  dialogue  ?  It  is  imaginary,  but  not 
idle :  it  may  do  good,  and  make  Power  think  instead  of 
thinking  it  thinks  —  a  common  but  hurtful  habit. 

Scene  — -  The  Old  Bailey. 

The  Judge.    Is  the  gaoler  present  ? 

Mr.  Holdfast.    Here,  my  lord. 

Judge.  I  sentence  this  man  to  four  months'  imprison- 
ment, with  hard  labour  :  you  understand  ? 

Holdfast.  Perfectly,  my  lord.  You  mean  unwhole- 
some labour,  as  much  as  he  can  do  and  a  little  more. 
So  then  when  he  falls  short,  we  reduce  his  diet  to  in- 
crease his  strength,  since  it  has  proved  unequal ;  this  to 
be  continued  in  a  circle,  and  take  his  bed  every  now  and 
then  and  let  him  lie  on  a  plank. 

Judge.  What !  hard  labour,  yet  short  diet,  with  the 
addition  of  cold  at  night  and  broken  rest !  Why,  this  is 
not  Detention,  it  is  Destruction — either  to  man  or  beast. 
No,  sir,  I  do  not  condemn  this  man  to  imprisonment  for 


DIALOGUE   BETWEEN   A   JUDGE   AKD   GAOLER.       443 

life  —  he  is  not  a  murderer  —  I  give  him  just  four 
months,  no  more,  no  less;  and  in  that  sentence  it  is 
clearly  implied  that  at  the  end  of  four  months  he  is  to 
come  out,  improved  in  his  habits  by  labour,  and  in  his 
body  by  regular  meals,  of  simple,  nourishing  food,  with 
no  alcohol. 

Holdfast.  Excuse  me,  my  lord ;  the  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment authorises  a  gaoler  to  reduce  a  prisoner's  diet,  and 
inflict  other  punishments. 

Judge.  Ay,  at  safe  intervals ;  but  not  in  quick  repeti- 
tion, nor  in  unreasonable  conjunction  —  hard  labour  on 
the  heels  of  privation,  and  cold  on  the  top  of  both.  These 
things  united  soon  exhaust  the  body.  Your  Act  of  Par- 
liament contains  no  clause,  that  can  be  read  in  a  court  of 
law,  to  repeal  the  law  of  England  regarding  so  great  a 
matter  as  homicide.  That  immortal  law,  which  was  here 
before  these  little  trumpery  Acts  of  Parliament,  made  to- 
day to  be  repealed  to-morrow,  and  will  be  here  after  Par- 
liament itself  has  run  its  course,  deals  with  the  case 
thus  :  If  A.,  having  the  legal  charge  of  B.,  and  keeping 
him  in  duresse,  so  that  he  cannot  possibly  obtain  the 
necessaries  of  life  elsewhere,  subjects  him  to  privation  of 
food,  rest,  &c.,  and  otherwise  so  shortens  his  life  directly 
or  indirectly  by  sheer  exhaustion  of  the  body,  or  by  any 
disease  which  is  a  natural  result  of  multiplied  privations 
and  hardships,  A.  can  be  indicted  for  a  felony ;  and  he 
will  be  tried,  not  by  any  officer  of  State  assuming  uncon- 
stitutional powers,  but  constitutionally,  by  the  Queen  in 
the  person  of  her  judge,  and  by  the  country  in  the  per- 
son of  its  jury. 

Holdfast.  They  would  never  find  a  gaoler  guilty,  not 
if  a  dozen  of  the  scum  died  in  their  term  of  imprison- 
ment. 


444  llEADIA^TA. 

Judge.  It  is  not  for  me  to  say.  They  are  getting 
more  intelligent,  like  the  rest  of  us.  Certainly  it  would 
be  their  duty  to  demand  good  evidence,  and  the  true 
facts  are  hard  to  get  at  in  a  gaol.  Acton  and  Fleetwood 
destroyed  many  prisoners,  yet  were  acquitted  on  trial. 
But  at  all  events  dismiss  from  your  mind  that  a  gaoler 
can  plead  the  Act  of  Parliament,  6v  any  purely  legal  de- 
fence, to  bloodless  destruction  of  a  British  subject  in  du- 
resse. Keep  strictly  to  my  sentence.  It  is  not  only  the 
sentence  of  the  Queen  and  the  law,  but  it  is  expressly 
proportioned  to  the  verdict  of  the  country.  Four  months 
in  a  house  of  detenti'on,  not  destruction ;  a  house  of  cor- 
rection, not  a  subtle  shambles.  The  sentence  has  two 
limits,  both  equally  absolute.  If,  during  the  four  months, 
you  turn  this  man  into  the  street,  you  are  indictable  for 
a  misdemeanour  ;  if,  during  the  four  months,  you  thrust 
him  cannily  into  his  grave,  you  are  indictable  for  a  fel- 
ony ;  and,  should  I  be  the  judge  to  try  you,  it  will  be  my 
duty  to  tell  the  jury  that  you  took  this  prisoner,  not  from 
the  clouds,  nor  from  any  Government  official,  with  no 
power  to  sentence  man,  woman,  nor  child,  where  I  sit, 
but  from  me  ;  and  that  I  sentenced  him,  in  your  hear- 
ing, to  four  months'  imprisonment,  and  not  to  imprison- 
ment for  life. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

CHAELES   KEADE. 

Knightsbridge,  Christmas  Day. 


NOTE    TO   A    SICK    FRIEND.  44i 


NOTE   TO   A   SICK   FRIEND. 

My  friend,  with  age  come  grief  and  care 

To  every  son  of  man, 
Sickness  or  sorrow,  hard  to  bear, 

Though  life  is  but  a  span. 

Since  last  we  met,  my  heart  has  bled, 

And  will  bleed  till  I  die ; 
And  you,  confined  to  a  sick  bed. 

In  pain  and  languor  lie. 

We  all  should  do  the  best  we  may 

To  cheer  a  friend  in  need. 
Expect  to-morrow,  or  next  day, 
A  visit  from 

CHAELES   READE. 
19,  Albert   Gate,  Knightsbridge. 


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